Black Widow
by Leda74
Summary: Responding to a distress call, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria land on a dead ship trapped in orbit around a highly unstable binary star. The captain requests the Doctor's assistance in saving the ship, its crew and cargo, and the Doctor is happy to comply...until he discovers that the cargo consists of a captive Cyberman.
1. Chapter 1

The ship was failing fast.

Prentice stood in the musty air of the hold, his head bowed and fists tightly clenched until his nails almost pierced his palms. He could feel the thrum of the ship's engines through the deck beneath his feet, but barely. The tempo of the proton turbines surged and ebbed in time with the flicker of the strip lights, and it sounded as if the craft were struggling for its very life.

"_Captain!_"

He ignored the hammering on the bulkhead door behind him. It wasn't important any more. He turned his attention to the crate instead, and now peered through the barred aperture at the creature chained up inside it. There was precious little light left in the hold now, and the thing was not much more than a series of curves and gleams in the eldritch green glow of the emergency lighting.

It was quite still, and Prentice might have taken it for dead had he not known better. He leaned closer to the bars, pressed his forehead against the cold metal and addressed his captive.

"I know you're doing this," he said, softly. "But how?"

There was no response whatsoever. The only sound that now assailed Prentice was the harsh whistle of his own breath in the dry air.

"No matter what you do," he whispered, "you're not getting away from me. If we die then we die together." He angled his head with a mirthless smile. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand," it said, flatly. Its voice, which had been weak and halting just a few hours ago, seemed much stronger now. In counterpoint to this, the bulbs in the hold dimmed even further, and several winked out entirely.

"Then why are you doing this?"

"We must survive."

"There is no 'we'!" hissed Prentice. "Your race is gone, don't you get it? Extinct. There's just you...and me."

The chains clinked faintly as it shifted in its restraints. "We must survive," it repeated. Prentice smacked his palm against the bars in frustration and fury, but he knew that the creature would not be intimidated so easily, if at all, and just as quickly calmed himself.

"You're already dead," he said, quietly and coldly. "You just don't know it yet."

"_Captain! You have to stop this!_"

Outside the hold, Argus pounded her fist against the door once more, pleading through the impenetrable steel. Her voice was raw from shouting and her eyes stung with helpless tears, as yet unshed. Anger, bewilderment and fear were fighting for control of her emotions, and her overriding concern for the rest of the ship's crew was only just keeping one or all of these from overwhelming her entirely.

There was no response from behind the locked door. There hadn't been in over two hours now. Ever since that abomination had been brought aboard several days ago, her captain – Jim Prentice, a man Argus had known and respected since her first posting aboard his ship more than seven years ago – had deteriorated into a paranoid, obsessive stranger. Their prisoner occupied his every thought and word. And now that it had finally made its move against them, they were quite helpless to respond in their own defence.

She returned to the bridge to find the pilot, Reese, hunched over in his seat, jabbing at the controls with his breath coming in sharp bursts. Argus could read his body language easily enough by now; the young man was practically sweating terror from every pore. She crossed the floor in the gathering darkness and took him by the shoulder.

"Do we have enough power left?"

"Enough for what?" he asked, his voice high and bordering on hysteria. "To steer the ship or maintain the shields? No. And believe me," he continued, with a guttural laugh, "in a few hours' time we're really going to miss those shields. Because guess what?"

Saying nothing more, he slapped at the switch that raised the visor on the forward view-screen. Argus turned her head and stared out at the vast wastes of space, and her heart stuttered in horror at the nightmare that lay ahead of the drifting vessel.

The screen was all but filled with a blinding orange glow, a wall of incandescent and highly radioactive gas that stretched away in both directions as far as she could see. This veil was translucent, however, and as Reese adjusted the filters on the screen to compensate for the glare that threatened to blind them both, she saw the real danger come into sharp focus.

Beyond the livid maelstrom, at the centre of a deadly whirlpool of plasma half a million miles across and screaming out its stroboscopic flashes hundreds of times per second, lay a pulsar. A hugely compacted star that could surely tear the ship and its crew into their component atoms, and then tear those atoms apart in turn.

And they were being dragged, slowly but surely, into its lethal gravitational embrace.

* * *

Not for the first time since she'd first set foot inside the TARDIS's capacious wardrobe, Victoria indulged in some speculation as to its contents as she wandered along an aisle of dresses, seeking something new to wear.

It seemed to her that it contained ladies' clothing suitable for just about any era, occasion or climate, and even though she'd quickly become accustomed to the revealing dresses and skirts of future fashions, she couldn't help but wonder where the Doctor came by it all. Or why, for that matter. He'd mentioned his family on occasion during their travels, and once he'd spoken of a granddaughter, but always in a carefully offhand manner, and with a look in his eye that wavered between evasion and sorrow and cautioned her against further inquiry.

These must be his granddaughter's clothes then, she decided, and on the heels of that thought she wondered which – if any – of these outfits were from the Doctor's home world. It still surprised Victoria that she had reacted so calmly to the Doctor informing her that he was from another planet, but since it had come in the wake of her traumatic experiences at the mercy of the Daleks, it was little wonder she'd failed to absorb the fact in its entirety. Lately, though, she'd started to examine it more closely every time her mind wandered, and had yet to find a way to reconcile the strange, shabby little man in the baggy coat with the notion of a four hundred and fifty year old alien from a race of time travellers.

Her attention was distracted at that point by a beautiful creation in soft blue velvet with a cream lace collar and cuffs, and she had almost finished changing when a series of sonorous peals began to ring through the open doorway. Though they had a melodious edge, the chimes were nonetheless somehow invasive and set her teeth on edge. Wincing, she hurried out into the corridor, still buttoning her dress, and almost bumped into Jamie, who gave her a quizzical look from beneath lowered brows.

"What's all this noise, eh?" he asked her, glancing up and down the passage, his hands on his hips.

"Well, how am I supposed to know?" she protested. "I don't like it, though. My ears are hurting."

"Aye," said Jamie, rubbing at the back of his head with a sudden scowl; clearly he was similarly affected, though with his usual Highland stoicism, not deigning to admit as much. "Aye, well," he repeated. "Let's go an' find the Doctor, anyway."

They eventually located the Doctor tucked away beneath the console in the control room, and Jamie addressed what little of the man could be seen, which basically amounted to a pair of legs wreathed in an alarming quantity of acrid smoke.

"Doctor!" Jamie raised his voice above the hearty crack and sizzle of the console, trying to reassure himself that if the Doctor wasn't panicking then there was probably no need to panic. When there was no immediate response, he rapped his knuckles on the nearest panel of the console and then stepped back as the Doctor clambered out of the mysterious inner workings of the TARDIS, his hair even more awry than usual and a piece of wire hanging from his ear.

"It's the fluid links again," he said, his expression so mournful it was almost comical; Victoria covered a smile and then watched him brighten a little before reaching up to remove the stray wire and make a token attempt to smooth down his hair. Behind him, apparently unheeded, the console continued to smoke gently but persistently. Victoria tapped his arm gently and indicated this fact with a meaningful nod.

"Yes, yes," he said, distractedly and in peculiarly good humour, given the circumstances. Turning back to the problem at hand, he flipped a small lever that stopped both the distressing crackling sound from the console and the ominous booming of the alarm bell.

"Doctor, what was that awful noise?" she asked, waving away the last of the smoke as it drifted past her face.

"That was the Cloister Bell," said the Doctor, ambling around the console and making a few more minor adjustments to their course, his expression screwed up in thought. "I'm not entirely sure why it was ringing. It's supposed to be for emergencies only."

"Emergencies like the TARDIS bein' on fire?" said Jamie, with a dash of sarcasm.

"Or the end of the universe," said the Doctor, his tone so placid that it took his companions a second or two to register the gravity of his words. Jamie and Victoria exchanged wide-eyed glances, but the Doctor evidently hadn't finished pursuing his line of thought, and in any case the three of them didn't appear to be in any immediate danger, universe-ending or otherwise.

"I was in fact trying to trace a distress signal," he went on, without looking up from the readout he was now perusing. "It was so faint I had to divert power from the primary propulsion systems just to maintain a lock on it. Obviously a little too _much_ power," he added ruefully, looking back up and treating them both to a bright but fleeting smile. "Still, I managed to secure the correct coordinates, so we're on our way now. Shouldn't be long."

Jamie looked sideways at Victoria for a second and then back at the Doctor. "There's no' gonna be too much danger, is there?" he asked, aware that it was probably a silly question but consumed, as was his ingrained habit, by a desire to protect the young woman.

"I shouldn't think they've sent out a distress signal because they've run out of milk, Jamie," the Doctor replied, condescendingly. "Yes, there probably is some danger. But we can't ignore a cry for help, now can we?"

"Suppose not," said Jamie, though grudgingly. Privately, in that moment, he re-examined a few old reservations about the Doctor's moral compass. Half the time, it seemed to him, the man would blithely stroll into the most readily obvious peril for reasons that had nothing to do with protecting other people's lives. Sometimes it was due to boredom, curiosity, or a desire to grandstand. Sometimes simply because it was there. And along with him he dragged his companions and other innocent bystanders, not all of whom had made it out alive in the past.

It wasn't that Jamie didn't like and respect the Doctor. But there was a fine line between courage and recklessness, and the Scotsman sometimes wondered if his friend knew exactly where that line lay.

He returned his attention to the present to see the Doctor staring coolly at him across the console, and there was a hint of something that looked very much like calculating analysis in those bright blue eyes. But it was there and gone again before he could react to it, and then the Doctor was pressing buttons on the console and evidently feeding the incoming signal through the loudspeakers. The sound filled the room at once; a ghostly electronic wail, rising and falling in pitch.

Victoria started at the sound at once. For some reason that she couldn't identify, it raised a rash of goosebumps on her arms. She rubbed at her elbows, trying to distract or reassure herself, she wasn't sure which. Jamie noticed her reaction and moved to her side, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. As he did so, the central column groaned once and then ceased its movement, indicating that the TARDIS had reached its destination. The Doctor rubbed his palms together briskly and made a cursory check of the local atmospheric conditions, muttering to himself as he did so.

"Air pressure fine, oxygen levels a little low but tolerable...temperature...what? An electromagnetic field. _How_ strong? My goodness me. That can't possibly be right. Oh, well, probably won't be here long enough to worry about that. Yes. Hmm..."

After a few more seconds of similarly cryptic commentary, Victoria spoke up. "Doctor? Is there anything wrong?"

"No, no, everything seems to be within acceptable limits," he said, though his features remained set and entirely indecipherable. "More or less, anyway. Shall we?"

Without waiting for an answer from his companions, he opened the doors, turned smartly on his heel and marched out into the darkness beyond.


	2. Chapter 2

Victoria stepped out into the dimly lit ship with great trepidation, Jamie close behind her. Instinctively she reached down and grasped his hand before moving away from the light and safety of the TARDIS doors.

"Doctor...?" she called, tremulously, not wanting to raise her voice too much in that gloomy, echoing space. Tugging gently on Jamie's hand, she moved out into an open area just ahead of their landing spot, which seemed to be formed of haphazardly stacked boxes at a little more than head height. The air was immobile and stale, and – she wrinkled her nose at the unmistakeable tang in the air – smelled faintly of ozone.

This brief overview of their surroundings, however, had not contained sight or sound of the Doctor, who had clearly found something of extreme interest and wandered off yet again, assuming his companions would manage to occupy themselves somehow. However, as she peered around the corner of the nearest aisle of crates, Victoria heard the Doctor's voice.

"Over here," he said, quietly.

She rounded the next aisle with Jamie to see the Doctor kneeling by a supine figure in a military grey tunic and trousers. Moving closer, and studying the body in the low light as best she could, she saw it was a slightly built, middle aged man, with close cropped brown hair and angular features, and a name tag – McEnery – pinned to his breast pocket. Victoria bit at her knuckle in sudden anxiety.

Jamie joined the Doctor at the man's side, looking him over with a serious knot in his brow. "Is he deid?" he asked.

"No, he's not," the Doctor murmured, and then busied himself with a few arcane examinations for a moment, checking the man's breathing, pulse and pupils, pinching the skin on the back of his hand and then, for some reason, gently opening his mouth to scrutinise his teeth as well. Finally he sighed deeply and straightened his spine, looking up at his companions. "But I think he's suffering from severe radiation sickness and I simply don't have the facilities on the TARDIS to treat it. We must find out if there's anyone else on this ship."

"This sickness...it isn't contagious, is it?" Victoria asked, her gaze tracking from his face to the unconscious man on the floor, and then back again. She watched the Doctor hesitate for a second, looking as if he were about to say something, and then he seemed to overrule himself and clambered to his feet, absent-mindedly fiddling with his bow tie as he did so. Victoria knew at once that he was keeping something from them, but lacked the courage to press him any further.

"Not at all," he said. His voice was strong and steady. "But someone should stay with him. Victoria, will you watch him, please? Jamie and I will fetch help."

"If there's any to fetch," said Jamie. The Doctor shot him a look, and then angled his head at the far end of the hold, where there stood a pair of sliding doors that presumably led to the forward decks. The Doctor at once turned his attention to the lock mechanism beside the door and began tinkering with it, his manner industrious if not efficient as he poked at the alphanumeric keypad. Jamie watched for a second, then turned to check they were out of Victoria's earshot before speaking up.

"What's wrong?"

The Doctor didn't even glance up from his task. "Nothing's wrong," he said, then clicked his tongue in mild annoyance as a red light flashed on the keypad.

"Whist, Doctor," muttered Jamie. "I ken ye well enough by now."

"Oh, you do, do you?" the Doctor replied. He remained just as engrossed in deciphering the locking mechanism, but an odd little smile creased the corner of his mouth for a second. Jamie wasn't entirely sure if this was at his expense, but by the time he started to respond, the Doctor had evidently mastered the intricacies of the keypad, and he chuckled in triumph as the light flashed to green instead and the doors slid apart with no more than a subtle hiss.

Beckoning Jamie to follow him, he stepped through the doors – and found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Oh my giddy aunt..."

* * *

Victoria had tried to make her patient as comfortable as possible, but after a while she admitted to herself that there was little to be done for him. She pulled a clean handkerchief from her sleeve and mopped a light coat of sweat from his forehead, and then she checked the pulse in his wrist, more to assure herself that he was still alive than from any more exact medical expertise.

But for the most part, she simply sat by McEnery's side and watched his chest rise and fall, slowly and infinitesimally. She considered fetching a pillow from the TARDIS, but was reluctant to leave his side for even a few minutes. The Doctor had given her responsibility for this man's welfare and she took that very seriously.

The congealed silence was preying on Victoria, and through a fog of unease she resolved to do something about that much, at least. So she started to sing, telling herself it was for McEnery's comfort rather than her own. Her voice wavered at first, but the words of 'Abide With Me', one of her mother's favourite hymns, had been ingrained into her mind since she was a small child, and provided a measure of reassurance.

It was only as she drew breath for the third verse that she heard the tiniest of creaks; and the sound, though muted by distance, was familiar enough to constrict her throat with sudden fright. It was the low squeal of the TARDIS door.

Her brain racing frantically, Victoria fought to recall whether she and Jamie had closed the doors behind them after leaving in search of the Doctor. Surely they had? It was a carefully ingrained habit by now, wasn't it? At once, she became horribly aware that her mind was framing these as questions rather than certainties, and she was just about to rise to her feet and return to the TARDIS when a hand landed on her arm, clutching desperately at her wrist.

The shriek died on her lips as she looked down at McEnery, who had stirred and woken from his faint and was now struggling to sit up. The exertion was plainly beyond him, however, and as Victoria watched, a thin stream of blood ran from his nostril. She moved at once, supporting his head on her knee and trying to calm his distress by laying her palm on his burning forehead and speaking as soothingly as she could.

"Hush now, you're safe," she said.

"I don't think so, pet," he replied, faintly, with a wan little smile. Victoria identified his accent as north-east England, and his voice was warm and friendly despite his clear exhaustion and pain.

"Why not?" she asked; wondering, as she did so, whether she really wished to know the answer.

"It's going to kill us all."

"What is?"

No answer. His eyes drooped, his breathing slowed and he passed out once more. Victoria bit at her lip, cradled his head in her lap and stared into the gloom around her, her eyes wandering to and fro. The noise she'd heard continued to nag at her, but now she wasn't so sure of herself. If her imagination was getting the better of her, she reasoned, would it be a great surprise given her surroundings?

She resigned herself to her present circumstances such as they were, and settled down in silence to wait for the return of Jamie and the Doctor.

Meanwhile, far out of her line of sight, something crept away from the wash of light around the half-open TARDIS door and secreted itself in shadow.

* * *

The doors slid shut behind them, and for long seconds silence reigned in the narrow corridor.

Argus lowered the plasma rifle slightly the better to address the stranger face to face, but – being nobody's fool – kept it trained on him nonetheless. She ran a brief appraising eye over his kilted companion, but her immediate instinct had told her that the older man was her primary concern. This conclusion, she decided, had something to do with the fact that he was still smiling pleasantly even at gunpoint.

"Who are you?" she demanded, tightening her grip on the weapon a little to keep her hands from shaking.

"Well, I'm the Doctor, and my capable Caledonian assistant here is James Robert McCrimmon, generally addressed as Jamie. There's really no need for this," he went on, nodding at the rifle, though he'd raised his hands in compliance. "I can assure you we mean you no harm. We picked up your distress signal, that's all."

"But you're not from the Company," said Argus.

"No, we just happened to be passing."

"How did you get aboard? The airlocks are sealed."

"Transmat beam, of course," said the Doctor, his tone implying that this ought to have been the obvious answer. He angled his head a little and tweaked his reassuring smile a notch or two higher. "You called for help. We're the help. And given your situation here, I'd say we're the only help you're going to get."

He pursed his lips a little in apparent thought, and then went on: "Your primary power source is completely exhausted, your battery back-up is failing too, your ship's sprung a lethal radiation leak somewhere and you've drifted, oh, I should think at least six thousand light years off the shipping lanes. Really, tell me," he finished, his eyes twinkling, "have I missed anything?"

Jamie had been keeping his counsel for the time being and watching the woman like a hawk. He had an instinctive reaction to being threatened – which was usually to draw his knife and charge his adversary with a challenging battle cry – but this was something he'd learned to suppress during his travels with the Doctor; having learned, as he had the hard way on occasion, that it wasn't always the wisest course of action.

Now he watched an internal struggle flower on Argus's face, and not without a degree of wry sympathy. The Doctor's friendly chatter and innocent charm, particularly when combined with his often immodestly expressed genius, had a way of throwing most aggressors off balance, and Jamie suspected that this was far from incidental. If it weren't for the fact that it occasionally backfired on him, as it had on Telos, it would have been a perfect tactic.

Argus opened her mouth, then closed it again. She furrowed her brow. Finally, and only after a hesitant few seconds, she lowered the rifle until it was pointing at the floor.

She sighed. The sound seemed to go on for a long time, and when she drew breath again she let out a short and entirely humourless laugh.

"You're broadly right," she said, "but we're _not_ out here by accident. This is a search and rescue ship, not a freighter, and we're more or less where we're supposed to be."

"More or less?" asked the Doctor. He finally lowered his hands and arched an inquiring eyebrow instead.

"I was getting to that part," said Argus. "We've been dead in the water for almost eighteen hours now, and we're in a rapidly decaying orbit around the Black Widow binary system. Our shields are close to collapse, and when they go the entire ship will be irradiated. We're suffering partial breakthrough already. All the crew are showing varying degrees of radiation sickness. Some far worse than others..."

She stopped and wound down at that point, as if the conversation had sapped almost every ounce of her strength. The Doctor's expression was now tinged with concern, and he stepped forward and offered his arm. Argus recoiled with residual suspicion, but only briefly, and then accepted his support as she seemed to weaken considerably. Jamie stepped up and assisted, and together they steadied her a little better on her feet until her dizzy spell appeared to pass.

When it did, she straightened up and politely but pointedly extracted herself from their grasp before stowing the rifle behind her shoulder and composing herself with considerable effort. She favoured them both with a cursory nod of thanks and then focused a peculiarly intense stare upon the Doctor.

"You'd better come and speak to the Captain," she said.


	3. Chapter 3

While they waited for Argus to fetch the ship's captain from whatever it was he was doing, the Doctor was certainly not sitting idle.

He was in fact prowling the deserted bridge, examining this and that, cocking his head now and then as he studied the instrument panels and readouts. He didn't touch anything, though, and Jamie frowned as he watched the Doctor's expression shift from rapt concentration to abject puzzlement as he looked closely at one particular display. This lasted only a few seconds before it was neatly filed away once more, as the man seemed to remember that he was being watched and deliberately rearranged his features into something less telling.

"Come and have a look at this, Jamie," he said instead, and waved a hand at the view from the front of the drifting ship. Jamie peered out of the window, quite unsure as to exactly what he was seeing. As per usual, he knew he had only to wait a few seconds for the Doctor to explain.

"That's a pulsar, you see?"

"A what-sar?" Jamie peered at the flickering point of white light in the baleful fog of luminescent gas. It was almost hypnotic.

"A star. But it's been squeezed down by immense gravitational forces," – he wrung his hands together in a surprisingly graphic gesture to illustrate his words – "until it's not just very small but also very, very dense. Oh, they're beautiful, fascinating objects, they really are," he added, smiling almost fondly for a moment. "But quite deadly, make no mistake about that. In fact, it's already destroyed its companion. That's what all this gas is. It used to be a star, but the pulsar ripped it apart and now it's consuming the remains, bit by bit."

"Oh, aye, I see," said Jamie, nodding thoughtfully, though in truth he didn't really understand more than a scrap of what the Doctor had just said. Frankly, it sounded ghoulish to him, although it was entirely in character for the Doctor to be overly enthralled with the science involved rather than concentrating on the risks.

"Are we safe in here?" he asked, pushing through to what he saw as the central point.

"For now, yes," said the Doctor, finally tearing his gaze away from the slow cosmic waltz going on outside the window.

"An' what about later? Do ye not think we'd best be off soon?" He planted his hands on his hips and glared as hard as he could, even though this attempt at intimidation was so much water off a duck's back to the Doctor. "If everyone else on board is getting sick 'cause of yon whatever-it-is out there, I'm no' that keen on waiting around. Think of Victoria!"

"I am, Jamie, I am," the Doctor said, with forced patience. "And we'll be going just as soon as I've helped these people make a few running repairs to their ship and treat their sick. Would you have me leave them here to die?"

"'Course not, but –"

He was interrupted by the swish of the door, and they both turned. Argus strode onto the bridge, accompanied by a man in his mid forties, with a military bearing that almost diverted attention from the deep shadows of exhaustion under his dark eyes.

"Prentice," he said, curtly, and without making any real attempt at a polite welcome. "I understand you're the rescue party?"

"Evidently not the one you were expecting," the Doctor replied, evenly, "but yes, we're here to offer any assistance we can in repairing your ship and sending you on your way. First things first, however," he added firmly, squaring his shoulders in businesslike fashion. "There's a very sick man in the hold and he really ought to be taken to the infirmary. You do have one, I trust?"

"Basic provision, yes," said Prentice, a little hesitantly.

"Any anti-radiation drugs?"

"One or two prophylactic treatments. Potassium and blood plasma."

"Is that all?" the Doctor snapped, in apparent disbelief. Jamie reacted to this with bewilderment. While he was used to the man's occasional – not to mention inexplicable – swings in temperament, it was rare to see this side to him even under far more provocation than he was currently suffering. He was suddenly behaving like an irritable sheepdog nipping at the heels of the flock, and Jamie could only stand and wonder why.

"You've already been informed that this is a recovery mission, Doctor," said Prentice, icily. "We were travelling light, from necessity."

The Doctor sighed theatrically, and then seemed to relent his unaccustomed outburst and offered the captain an apologetic look. "Oh, very well. We'll just have to do the best we can. Jamie, you go with this young lady and help take Mr McEnery to the infirmary. And I'll need to speak with your chief engineer at once."

The atmosphere in the room changed at once; Jamie felt the first prickle of unease as soon as Argus and the captain turned to share a worried glance, although it was several seconds before anyone spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," said Argus, eventually. "But Mr McEnery _is_ our chief engineer."

* * *

Victoria had never felt more helpless, and tears now threatened.

She didn't need any complex medical training to see that her charge was close to death. His breathing was both shallow and rapid and his skin was ghostly pale and seemed paper-thin. She had tried to rouse him once or twice, squeezing his hand in her own, but to no avail. There was no response, none at all.

She didn't know how long the Doctor and Jamie had been gone. Locked in this terrible, gloomy place, surrounded by eerie ghost-sounds and foetid air, keeping watch over a dying man...to her perception, it might as well have been hours. Quelling the last of her indecision on the matter and trying to put aside her guilt at leaving his side, she laid McEnery's head down as gently as she could, and whispered a brief prayer over him before getting to her feet.

All at once, the hold seemed both much darker and much larger, and she had trouble getting her bearings as she turned first one way and then the other. The faintest glimmer of light at the far end of the aisle suggested an exit of some kind, though, and so she headed in that direction for want of any better option.

Once she was close enough, however, it became apparent that what confronted her – though it was indeed outlined in low greenish light issuing from several glowing wall panels to each side of it – wasn't a door but some kind of recess, containing a single large, upright metal box with a barred window set in the front.

Victoria possessed a great deal of common sense and a healthy eye for danger, but somehow, the sight of that aperture set both of these aside. It was an irresistible invitation to investigation, and she took another step forward as if mesmerised, then another, and then one more, which put her within reach of the box. She hesitated, and in that moment she noticed that it was clamped tight shut with the aid of several heavy locks. As if, somehow, whoever had sealed it up hadn't trusted the job to just one.

This final detail should have provoked a reaction from her survival instincts. She knew, in some dim and distant part of her mind, that no good could come from looking into the box. That it wasn't locked up tight to prevent someone getting _in_ but to stop something getting _out._

These conclusions, too, were overruled by the sheer pressure of her curiosity. She stepped up onto her toes, clutched the bars and peered into the darkness.

* * *

"Believe me, we didn't know he was so sick," said Argus, as she and Jamie made their way back down to the hold through the ship's narrow, twisting confines. "He never said a word. Didn't complain. Nothing."

"Aye, I don't expect he did," said Jamie. As the ship's engineer, he had no doubt that McEnery had valiantly stuck to his post even while he was coughing up blood. There was a certain breed of man – and Jamie would certainly classify himself under this heading – who would sooner admit to anything else than frailty or ever allow injury to lead to dereliction of their duty.

"Will this Doctor of yours be able to reverse the power loss?" asked Argus, in a sudden and, he thought, slightly awkward attempt at a change of subject.

"If anyone can, he can," said Jamie, firmly. On the matter of the Doctor's technical expertise, at least, he was in no doubt whatsoever. However, he was nurturing a nagging feeling that the power drain was only the smallest of this ship's problems. There was an undercurrent, so strong as to be almost palpable, of important things unsaid, particularly between Argus and her captain; and so Jamie was trying to prepare himself for further unpleasant discoveries.

"By the way, I never _did_ get an answer to my question," said Argus, smoothly, as she led the way down the gangway to the lower decks. "If you two aren't from the Company, what are you doing all the way out here?"

"Oh, we was just passin' through, like the Doctor told ye," Jamie replied, airily. He didn't look at her face as he spoke, but he heard her snort quietly and scornfully.

"Your boss couldn't pull off a lie like that, Mr McCrimmon," she said, her voice salted with amusement, "and you certainly can't. Nobody in their right mind crosses the Omicron Sector for fun, any more than they'd swim in a crocodile pool for the same reason. So?"

Jamie thought fast, faster than he'd ever done in his life. And in a split second, it occurred to him that if this woman had a nose for lies, he'd do best to tell her the truth instead. Or, at least, something he'd come to accept as a fact of life in the last few months. He composed his words and turned to her with a look of mock deprecation.

"The Doctor's always been like this," he said, with a shrug. "He's forever walking intae danger. Cannae keep him out o' trouble most of the time."

"Then why do you stay with him?"

Jamie stopped, swung around and looked her square in the eye. "Because he's my friend," he said, simply.

At that moment, they both reacted as a piercing scream cut the air in the corridor. It echoed and reverberated up and down the passage and then was followed by another, this one accompanied by the sound of someone hammering frantically on a door. Argus jumped, but Jamie's reactions were far more finely tuned, and with good reason; he had recognised the sound of Victoria's voice even at that distance. He took off like a hare, leaping down the last few steps and shouldering through the door at the bottom.

He skidded to a halt at the end of the corridor and found himself up against the now sealed doors to the hold as Victoria continued to wail in terror on the other side of them. He prodded at the combination lock, and then he smacked it with his fist, but he did not have the Doctor's skill with electronics and his efforts resulted in nothing but a badly skinned knuckle. Frustrated, angry and in pain, he placed his palm on the door and raised his voice.

"Victoria! I cannae open the door! What's happenin'?"

"_Let me out! Please!_"

"I'm tryin'!"

Just then, Argus caught him up and elbowed him aside without a word before punching at the keypad with practised urgency. The light above the keys flashed from red to green, and the doors slid open.

As soon as they had done so, Victoria fell through into Jamie's arms, and he had to tighten his grip on the girl as she struggled like a wildcat, alternately clutching at his neck and sobbing piteously. He made soothing sounds, and stroked her hair, and gradually her cries subsided into words. It was little more than a random stream of consciousness born of primal terror, but one word in the flow was clear enough, and it turned the marrow in his bones to ice.

That word was 'Cyberman'.


	4. Chapter 4

"I should have known. Oh, I should have _known_..."

The Doctor pressed a hand to his forehead for a moment, as if in great pain, and then turned the full force of his attention on Prentice, who bore up under it with surprising stoicism.

Victoria, sitting huddled in a moulded plastic chair on the far side of the infirmary, watched the two of them warily. The Doctor was bristling with emotion – almost trembling from it, in fact – whereas the captain, in complete contrast, appeared to have shut down. Only the merest whitening of his complexion betrayed any hint of inner turmoil.

"Why do you have a Cyberman aboard your ship?" the Doctor demanded, his voice hoarse with anger.

Prentice's brows dropped, just a little. "I hardly think that's any business of yours," he replied, stonily. Victoria couldn't help but wince; it was extremely unwise, she knew, to take such a haughty tone with the Doctor. Much greater men had tried it before and come to grief. She saw the Doctor stiffen perceptibly, draw himself up and then adopt a sardonic little smile that entirely failed to reach his eyes.

"It is if you still want my help, Captain," he said, clipping each and every word. "I can assure you I've no intention of assisting you in returning to Earth with that creature." He fixed Prentice with a rapier stare. "Great heavens, man, don't tell me you don't know how dangerous they are?"

"After decades of war?" Prentice retorted, scornfully. "Of course I do. We all do. I've lived my entire life in their shadow. I've watched them plunder whole worlds and convert millions. Women, children, nobody was spared.

"But now it's over. The last Cyberman in the galaxy has been captured. By me!" He took a step closer and prodded a finger into the Doctor's chest. "And I'm dragging it back to Earth in chains, do you hear me? Even if it's the last thing I ever do. Even if I die trying!"

Jamie, who had been standing close by and was well aware of the rapidly building tension in the space between the two combatants, now moved in and laid a cautionary hand on the Doctor's arm. He felt at once that the man was shaking with fury, and Jamie tightened his grasp a little, meaningfully. The last thing they needed now was to be dealing with locked horns.

"Doctor," he said, _sotto voce_. "We havnae time for this."

There was an uncertain moment in which the air itself seemed to seize up, and then Prentice averted his unblinking gaze and lowered his hand, signalling if not surrender then at least a temporary ceasefire. Jamie slowly eased his grip, but remained at the Doctor's side in case of further hostilities.

"For what purpose?" asked the Doctor, with almost predatory calmness.

"What?" The captain seemed to snap out of a brief fugue and refocused his gaze once more upon the Doctor.

"Why take it to Earth?"

"Because that's what justice demands, Doctor," said Prentice, raising his chin defiantly. "After everything we've suffered, everything we've lost, anyone would agree we're entitled to extract our revenge."

"Oh yes, revenge," said the Doctor, bitterly. "How very...human." He drew a deep breath and let it out again, shaking his head. Then he turned his head a little to find Argus, who stood at her captain's shoulder, her mouth set in a thin and troubled line.

"And what do _you_ think about all this?" he asked her.

"I obey my orders," she said, a shade too quickly, but Jamie noticed that she'd nonetheless taken the time to cast a quick, nervous sidelong glance at Prentice before speaking.

"That doesn't stop you from thinking, though, does it?" the Doctor persisted.

"No, but I..." she said, and then subsided.

He finished the sentence for her. "But you have your doubts," he said.

"I won't have you instigating mutiny on my ship!" barked Prentice, stepping in front of his second in command and cutting off the conversation.

"_Mutiny?_" the Doctor blustered.

The captain ignored his outrage entirely. "You will confine yourself to the task of restoring power to this ship," he said, coldly. "Since our chief engineer is in critical condition, you'll consult instead with the ship's pilot. Your associates will remain under the supervision of Lieutenant Argus unless they're able to assist you in some fashion. And the hold and its contents are out of bounds to all three of you. Do we understand one another?"

Jamie once again prepared himself to restrain the Doctor if necessary, but it seemed that it wasn't, or at least, not for the time being. Prentice gave them both a faintly snide look and then walked out of the infirmary without further comment.

"What dae we do now?" said Jamie, helplessly.

"You heard the Captain's orders," the Doctor told him, looking him right in the eye. Jamie was about to protest, when he caught the tiniest flicker in the man's wide-eyed gaze and interpreted it swiftly and accurately. _Not in front of Argus, _the look said. Jamie nodded sagely.

"Aye, I did," he said. "Well, can I help ye wi' the mechanics?"

"Yes, I think you'd probably better come with me," the Doctor told him, with another communicative gleam in his eye. He then turned over his shoulder. "What about you, Victoria?"

"I'd rather stay here," she said, quietly, and cast a glance at the narrow folding bunk by the wall, where McEnery was now plugged into an oxygen line and IV and seemed to be stable, if not improved. The Doctor's face softened, and he nodded understandingly.

"Very well," he said. "Jamie and I will be on the bridge if you need us. We won't be far away."

As the two men made to leave the room, Victoria was gripped by a sudden unfathomable worry and hurried over to them. She stood close in front of the Doctor, clasped her hands together in front of her and then looked up at him earnestly.

"Is everything going to be all right?" she said, very softly.

"Of course it is," he replied.

"But you'd say that even if it wasn't true," she insisted, speaking plainly.

"Well, perhaps I would," he admitted, his eyes creasing kindly as he smiled down at her. "But I promise you I'm going to try my very best to _make_ it true. Will that do?"

Victoria already knew that she placed more faith in a promise from the Doctor than a guarantee from anyone else. So she simply nodded, and hugged herself briefly as he and Jamie left to return to the bridge.

Once they'd gone, Victoria moved over to the unconscious man and busied herself at his bedside, adjusting the sheet and pillow a little, wanting to feel as if she were doing something useful, or indeed anything. She'd almost forgotten about Argus's continuing presence until the woman shifted awkwardly, hiking her rifle a little higher onto her shoulder. Victoria spared her a polite glance but then returned her attention to her patient.

"I'm sorry I have to do this," said Argus, at last.

"I'm sorry you have to do it, too," Victoria replied, still not looking up as she examined the IV line and the valve on the oxygen cylinder. They meant little to her, but all at once she was determined to maintain an illusion of informed confidence. Partly from a sudden attack of personal pride, but also because – she reasoned – it could do no harm to their situation if Captain Prentice and his crew assumed that she was just as capable as the Doctor.

"That Doctor of yours is a remarkable man."

"More than you know," said Victoria, breaking into a tiny smile as she spoke, which she just as quickly smothered once more. It wouldn't be a good idea to get into a detailed discussion concerning the Doctor. Argus was probably just trying to make casual conversation, but there was always a chance that she was mining for information.

"How did you meet him, may I ask?"

"He was a friend of the family. When my father died and left me all alone, the Doctor took care of me," she said. Victoria tried not to think of this as a lie, since she'd been strictly brought up to regard lying as a sin; and indeed, it wasn't technically a lie, she reassured herself, but rather a bare-bones version of the truth, with the Daleks and Skaro and time travel omitted for convenience.

"I'm sorry about that," said Argus, and she sounded perfectly sincere in her condolences. But then she smiled, suddenly and unexpectedly. "And what about your boyfriend?"

Victoria was puzzled by the turn of phrase for two seconds before its meaning dawned, and when it did, she almost giggled.

"Jamie's not my boyfriend," she said, sure that she was blushing horribly.

"My apologies," said Argus. Her voice sounded rough now, and she coughed once, then twice, and then a third time.

Victoria turned her head and looked closely at the other woman for the first time, and now saw that she was very white in the face, barring two spots of colour high on her cheeks that in any case looked more like bruises than a healthy flush. What was worse, there was a faint smear of fresh blood on her lip that she was even now trying to conceal. Victoria reacted at once, and drew up the chair she'd vacated.

"Sit _down_," she said, her voice brooking no contradiction. "You're obviously not fit to be on your feet."

Argus still looked hesitant for a second, but then Victoria pointed at the chair with a scowl of disapproval, and the woman took a seat with a sigh of relief.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said, once she'd caught her breath again. "Really, it's not."

"But it is going to get worse," Victoria replied, severely. "You might end up the same as poor Mr McEnery if you don't get some rest."

"What's resting got to do with it?" Now Argus had turned around in her seat and was looking at her very oddly. "If we can't pull this ship out of orbit in the next twelve hours or so, we'll _all_ end up like that. Me, you, your friends. Every living thing on board this ship. Don't you know?"

Victoria stared at her.

* * *

With the engines dead, the hold was now utterly silent.

And in this silence, moving so stealthily that it was still no more than a suggestion of a whisper, something slipped through a narrow gap between two boxes and into an open space, where it seemed to hesitate, swinging from one side to the other as if seeking guidance, a homing beacon of some sort, perhaps.

After a few seconds' pause it moved off again, this time with clear purpose, until it found itself skulking in the muted green wash of light from the luminous panels around the impenetrable holding cell. Once there, it halted again, briefly, while it received a set of telepathic instructions from the creature chained up inside.

Then, in one fluid, almost snakelike movement, the Cybermat sprang up onto the first of the three locks and began to tear it apart.


	5. Chapter 5

It was clear that the pilot would be of little to no assistance in resolving their problems.

The Doctor had gently but firmly ushered the bewildered young man out of the forward seat almost at once and then taken his place at the main control bank, upon which he beckoned to the captain and tapped a readout covered in incomprehensible numbers. Jamie peered over his shoulder and nodded to himself, trying to appear knowledgeable.

"This isn't a power loss, Captain," the Doctor was saying. "Any fool can see that much from these figures. What you have here is a power _drain._ It's as plain as day that something on board this ship is continuously leaching power from the main storage cells. If not for that you certainly wouldn't need my help. You could have recharged the cells in a matter of minutes with the energy from the pulsar." He paused and sat back in his seat, lacing his hands together in thought before continuing. "But the Cyberman's found a way to tap them, hasn't it...and you can't stop it."

"You think you're clever, don't you?" asked Prentice, his eyes narrowing.

"I wouldn't dream of contradicting popular opinion," said the Doctor. Jamie just about managed to stifle a laugh, and then put on a studied poker face as the captain turned to glare at him for a second before returning his attention to the Doctor.

"I believe I've already made myself clear, Doctor," said Prentice, his eyes flaring dangerously. "I am fully prepared to sacrifice my life to return that monster to Earth to face justice. I'm also prepared to sacrifice the lives of my crew, some of whom I've known for many years. Don't think for one moment that _your _well-being is any kind of factor in my decision."

There was a long, luxuriant silence. Finally, the Doctor got to his feet and pointedly straightened his shirt cuffs before looking back up into the captain's fixed stare.

"Well," he said, flatly, "at least we both know where we stand. Now, if you'll excuse me. I'm not getting any work done standing here talking to you, am I?"

Jamie fully expected another outburst from Prentice, but this was not forthcoming. His lips thinned for a second, but then he snorted softly.

"Why are you so concerned about one Cyberman?"

"I'm concerned about much more than that," said the Doctor, still glacially calm. He then turned back to the console and resumed his seat, clearly signalling an end to the conversation. Prentice reacted to this, but then turned to Jamie instead, as if he'd only just noticed the young Scotsman's presence on the bridge.

"What are you doing up here?" he demanded.

"I'm, er..."

"He's monitoring the shield density fluctuations," said the Doctor, without looking up from his work. "I've only got one pair of eyes, you know."

"Aye, that's what I'm doin' all right," said Jamie confidently. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Doctor wink at him and point discreetly at a nearby console, and with some relief he headed in that direction and took the co-pilot's seat.

"Very well," said Prentice, although he did not look like a man convinced, and seemed to be itching to find a reason to stay and keep an eye on the pair of them. If so, he evidently gave up and turned to head for the door. Just as he was reaching for the button, however, the Doctor called to him.

"One more thing, Captain?"

"Yes, what is it?"

"I do appreciate your reasons for keeping the hold sealed," said the Doctor, turning over his shoulder, "but at some point I'll need to see your prisoner."

"What? Why?"

"For two reasons," the Doctor replied. "First of all, while you may think you have the upper hand here, you really don't, you know. The Cyberman's managed to cripple your ship from inside a prison cell. I can't tell you how it's done that without examining it for myself, and I can't even begin to guess what else it's capable of. And second," he went on, "if there's a chance I can reason with it, I'd like to try."

"Reason with it?" Prentice echoed, in frank disbelief.

"Yes, Captain," said the Doctor, with infinite patience and a gentle smile. "Nobody has to die today, you know. Not unless that's the way you want it."

It seemed that the captain was out of words for the time being. His face flickered for a moment as several contrasting expressions crossed it like cloud shadow, and then he simply turned, punched the button and stalked out of the door without looking back. Jamie waited until the door had closed once more before turning to the Doctor, who had once again busied himself with the controls of the ship, and was even humming a jaunty little tune to himself as he worked.

"Dinnae take this the wrong way," said Jamie, leaning across the space between their seats, "but are ye cracked in the heid?"

The Doctor looked up briefly and hoisted one eyebrow. "Whatever do you mean?" he asked.

"Ye're aimin' to _talk_ to a Cyberman?"

"Do we have anything to lose by trying?" The Doctor drummed his fingers on the console for a moment, looking as if he were deeply conflicted about something, and then swung around to face his young companion.

"Jamie, please understand that right now I'm playing for time and trying to think," he said, gravely. "It's all I can do. I don't have a plan. I can't halt the energy drain from the bridge, and if he stopped to think about it for two seconds, Captain Prentice would realise that for himself. But I'm very much afraid he's not thinking clearly any more. Not now he has the white whale in his sights at last," he finished, with a rueful half-smile.

"The white whale?" Jamie's brow furrowed.

"Sorry," said the Doctor, suddenly looking impish. "Moby Dick. That was long after your time. But my point remains," he went on, sobering once more. "Even if I repair this ship, I have to find a way to stop him taking that Cyberman back to Earth. I simply _have_ to."

"Um..."

Jamie glanced up and over the Doctor's shoulder. The young pilot, who had been lurking in a corner, all but forgotten, had finally broken his silence and edged over to them. Jamie wondered at the man's evident apprehension; it wasn't as if either of them presented that threatening a figure. On the other hand, the whole ship was saturated with a thick atmosphere of fear and suspicion. Certainly more than enough to infect everyone on board to some degree.

"Mr Reese, isn't it?" the Doctor said, breaking into a reassuring smile as he looked around. "What can we do for you?"

"The Captain's not a bad man," said Reese, sounding defensive.

"Oh, I never thought he was," the Doctor replied. "But good men can still make bad choices."

"He wouldn't really let us die, would he?"

"I hope not."

Reese cast a helpless look out of the window at the looming pulsar, tangled in its web of fire. "Can you stop this?" he asked, his voice now scarcely more than a whisper.

"I'll try my best," said the Doctor. Rising from his seat, he patted the pilot's shoulder absently but kindly.

"Maybe I can help you," said Reese, the expression on his face suggesting that he'd almost reached the end of a difficult mental journey.

"We'd certainly appreciate it, wouldn't we, Jamie?" The Doctor glanced around at his companion, who nodded encouragingly.

"I think I can – " Reese began, after another hesitant moment, but at that point he was interrupted by the swish of the door. The sound silenced him as effectively as if he'd been slapped, and he backed away from the Doctor so quickly that he almost stumbled over his own feet.

However, it wasn't Prentice who hurried onto the bridge, but Victoria, who had clearly been running all the way. She hung onto a nearby stanchion for two or three seconds, catching her breath, and then waved an urgent hand at the men.

"Mr McEnery," she gasped, eventually. "He's awake! He says he must speak with you."

"We'll continue this later," said the Doctor, with a sharp look at the pilot. "Jamie, you stay here and keep an eye on those, um..."

"Shield density fluctuations?" said Jamie, silently thanking his lightning fast powers of recall.

"Yes, yes, those," the Doctor agreed. "I'll be back soon with more information. I hope," he added, and then swept out of the room with Victoria in his wake.

Once they'd gone, Reese subjected Jamie to a very long, thorough, and highly speculative stare. It didn't seem to be particularly challenging, though, which was some comfort considering his next words.

"You don't know a thing about tau neutrino shields, do you?" he asked.

"Well," Jamie scratched his head in sudden embarrassment. "Not as such, no."

"Who _are_ you people?"

"Och, you'd never believe me if I told ye."

* * *

Meanwhile, Prentice had succumbed to his obsession and returned to the hold.

Ever since the Cyberman had been captured, he'd hardly left its side, and in the last four days he'd spent most of his waking hours in the bowels of the ship; and since the creature had begun to plague his dreams as well – making sleep first uncomfortable and then, eventually, almost unbearable – his waking hours were long.

He hardly ate. Didn't smile. Didn't speak unless it was to issue orders. He'd seen his crew muttering to one another in corridors and giving him sidelong looks when they thought he wasn't watching, but he couldn't bring himself to care too much about that. Lately it was as if he were seeing the world through a fog. Only here, facing his mortal enemy, looking it in the eye at last, was he truly alive.

Prentice clenched and unclenched his hands as he stalked through the darkened hold, on his way to commune with the thing once more. He was _sure_ he was closer to understanding it, and sure that with such understanding would come closure for what the Cybermen had done to his people.

And for what they'd done to Sarah.

He bit his tongue at once as her name crept into his mind, but far too late to stop the image of her face coming back to him as well. Sarah on the morning he'd seen her before embarking on his very first tour of duty, more than twenty years ago. Sarah wearing a beautiful smile and the diamond ring he'd given her only the night before, along with a promise to marry her just as soon as he returned.

The recovery crew had found the ring, at least, lying in the still-smouldering wreckage of her house. But that was all.

As these memories had clawed at him once more, Prentice had quite naturally and inevitably lost his bearings among the aisles of shelves and boxes. He saw a soft glow ahead and headed for it, but became aware at once that it was not the green glimmer he sought but a stronger white light. And as he rounded the corner, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared, mouth hanging open in confusion.

In front of him stood a large, battered blue box, with the words POLICE BOX printed on a band near the top. It had high, frosted glass windows set with lead strips. There was a sign on the door, but all at once, Prentice had no time to take in any further detail. The doors of the box, which had already been standing ajar and spilling out light, now creaked back and revealed a silhouetted figure.

Slowly and inexorably, it raised its arm.


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor's moods could certainly be capricious and often startling, Victoria knew, but something she'd never known him lack was compassion.

She watched him now as he settled himself at the engineer's bedside and folded his hands on his knees, his whole posture radiating calmness in spite of the immense pressure of time and the patient's clearly precarious state of health.

"You needed to speak with me, Mr McEnery?" he said, his voice velvet and infinitely soothing.

McEnery had drifted away to the very edge of consciousness, but on hearing the Doctor's voice, his eyelids fluttered and, by degrees, opened once more.

"I hope you're looking after me ship, pal," he croaked, pinning the Doctor with a surprisingly direct stare.

"Well, one does one's best, you know how it is," the Doctor replied, with a bright little smile. "But I do need some advice, if you're feeling well enough."

"So long as I'm breathing, I'm well enough," said the engineer, obstinately, and then struggled up a little. Victoria's brow creased with concern, and she moved forward and adjusted the pillows, the better to help prop him up. He sank back, his breathing raw and his forehead glossy with sweat, and then offered her a thankful look before turning back to the Doctor.

"You look a canny fella to me," he went on, once he'd recouped enough strength to speak, "so I'm thinking you worked out where the power's going?"

"Oh yes, eventually," the Doctor admitted, with a diffident shrug. Victoria immediately raised an eyebrow at this unusual display of modesty, but said nothing.

"Well, that's why I was spending all me time along of the engineering decks since we got held up, see? Trying to find a way to stop the bugger. Trouble is, there's a ton o' radiation leaking through down there. You think it's bad in the hold? You've seen nowt so far." McEnery paused to swallow heavily, and accepted a cup of cold water from Victoria before continuing, a sip of which seemed to lend him a little more strength. "You happen to know anything about high temperature superconductors?"

"A little, yes." Victoria was watching the Doctor carefully, and though his tone remained mild, his expression had sharpened considerably in that moment.

"She's a prototype, this'un. We ain't supposed to tell anyone, but what've I got to lose now, eh?" The engineer coughed alarmingly, bringing up a small gout of blood that stained his teeth, and it was clear he had to fight for his next breath before he caught it; but he nevertheless waved Victoria away as she attempted to minister to him.

"You were saying something about superconductors?" asked the Doctor, and this time, there was the softest harmonic of urgency in his voice.

"The hull," said McEnery, hoarsely. "The decks. The bulkheads. Lanthanum-titanium alloy, the lot. Zero resistance even at standard room temperature."

"But that's impossible!" the Doctor insisted, frowning. "The laws of physics absolutely forbid it."

"I don't know from any laws," the engineer chuckled. "I just do me job. If it's impossible, well, then we did the impossible. You think you can do better?"

Just then, a violent spasm seemed to take hold of McEnery's slight frame, and he clawed at the air as he wheezed and strained for breath once more. Victoria watched his eyes roll up in his head, and then she shook her head and stepped up, clamping the oxygen mask back over his mouth and nose until the paroxysm subsided.

The Doctor, meanwhile, had turned away and pressed a hand to his mouth in astonishment, and now he bounced to his feet and began to pace the infirmary in restless circles, muttering to himself as he went.

"How have they done it? How? And why? Just because they could, I suppose, but now look what's happened, it's put them in terrible danger. Put _everyone_ in danger." He stopped by the far wall and reached out, laying his fingertips on the cool metal, but oddly warily, as if it might bite. "Lanthanum-titanium. Absolutely incredible."

Victoria watched him owlishly as he drew back his hand and resumed his circuit, his voice dropping even further until he was almost unintelligible. After a few moments, however, her attention was distracted by a soft sound, and she looked down.

"They couldn't have predicted this, I suppose," the Doctor went on, irritably, slashing a hand through the air and apparently addressing the ceiling. "But how am I supposed to stop this without destroying the entire ship? Oh, you blinkered fools! Must you always tinker with things you don't understand?"

Victoria raised her head once more, her eyes lined in pink. "Doctor," she said, quietly. He paid her no attention.

"There's no help for it. I have to to talk the Cyberman. Make it understand that it'll die too, if we can't restart the engines. They may be a lot of things, but they're not stupid. Or suicidal..."

"Doctor, he's dead."

Her words broke through his flustered self-absorption at last, and the Doctor stopped in his tracks and swung around.

"Oh," he said, haltingly, and then his face fell. "Oh, good heavens. I'm so sorry."

Victoria didn't say anything for long seconds. She was still holding the engineer's hand, and it was only with great reluctance that she released her grasp. She touched his still-warm cheek, lightly and briefly, and then drew the sheet up to cover his face. Then she half turned away in a clumsy attempt to hide the tears that were spilling from her eyes.

All to no avail. The Doctor crossed the room in two quick strides and slipped an arm around Victoria, then tugged out a large, brightly coloured handkerchief and handed it to her. She laid her head on his shoulder in silence for a little while until the last of the tears dried on her cheek, and then, feeling a little foolish, made a valiant effort to compose herself.

"I'm being very silly, I know," she said, through a weak smile. "I'd only known him a few hours, after all."

The Doctor shook his head firmly. "No, Victoria, you're not being silly at all. I think you're being very human, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"I'm sure you must be used to this sort of thing, having lived for so long."

"Death, you mean? No, no. I can't say I am," said the Doctor, gently. "And you know, I really don't _want_ to get used to it." He hesitated, and seemed to pick his next words with great care. "Or to acquiesce to it. Yes, it might be inevitable but it doesn't have to be meaningless, and the best thing we can do for Mr McEnery now is to make sure his death wasn't in vain. He was a courageous man, he did his duty to the very last, and he's given us the information we need to save the lives of everyone else aboard this ship.

"We're not going to let that go to waste. Are we?" he asked, finally, lifting her chin and seeking her gaze. Victoria set her shoulders, tried to look as brave as she could, and deftly tucked the Doctor's handkerchief back into his pocket.

"No, we're not," she said.

"That's the spirit. Now," he added, straightening his lapels with a determined gleam in his eye, "let's go and see what we're dealing with..."

* * *

Prentice returned to consciousness by inches, and for a while – how long, he didn't know – he was content to remain prone upon the floor. His head ached savagely, and the cool surface was curiously soothing against his burning cheek.

In lieu of movement, he tried to leaf through his recent memories, but strangely, they didn't seem to be there. All he had at his disposal were fragments, like twinkling shards of smashed glass: a blinding flash of light, the sensation of being lifted off his feet as easily as if he were a rag doll, and then a bright white room filled with a strangely soporific background hum.

Now, though, his torpor was interrupted by the snap and crackle of electricity, accompanied by the unlovely scent of scorched plastic. He heard footsteps passing by, quite close to his recumbent head, then a sharp bang; even in the depths of his mental soup, he concluded that the noise must have been the result of something shorting out, as the bright light dimmed at once and the humming noise died away with it. He was left mired in sickly orange gloom as the sudden silence rang like a bell in his ears.

He didn't mind. The light had been hurting his eyes, even though they were closed. His relief was short-lived, however, as a new sound penetrated his consciousness. This one wasn't restful. It wasn't even pleasant. It was an insectile scuttling and scratching that gnawed at the root of his deepest fears, and it was moving closer and closer.

He opened his eyes...and screamed.

* * *

The Doctor and Victoria arrived at the doors to the hold to see Argus working feverishly on the lock, her hair hanging in her eyes and panic etched into her expression. She didn't spare them a glance, but Jamie – who had been watching her helplessly – greeted them with a thankful look.

"Doctor, ye've got tae help," he said.

"What's going on?"

"The Captain's locked himself in the hold with the Cyberman," said Argus, cutting across Jamie as soon as he opened his mouth to explain. "He's been obsessed with it from the start, he spends most of his days down there watching the damn thing, talking to it, for God knows what reason...but this time something's wrong." The lock was evidently defeating her, and she slammed it with the heel of her hand in mounting frustration.

"Allow me," said the Doctor, stepping up and gently urging her aside. He darted his fingers over the keys as Argus sagged back against the wall and continued to explain, her voice shaking badly.

"He left his communicator on for once," she said, "and I heard him call for help. Then it was cut off. There's been nothing but dead air since. He sounded so scared, Doctor. Absolutely _terrified_," she insisted, her complexion blanching.

Victoria gave the woman a look of mute empathy. She herself had been plunged into the nightmare world of the Cybermen not long after meeting the Doctor, and coming hard as it had on the heels of her experiences with the Daleks, she'd thought at first that she had no room left for terror. Telos and its tombs of ice had proven her badly wrong, and she understood only too well the creeping horror that the creatures engendered.

The lock beeped, responding at last to the Doctor's efforts. As the doors parted, he plunged through at once. Jamie grabbed Victoria's hand and together they and Argus followed him into the darkness.

The Doctor paused to fish a penlight from his coat pocket, and switch it on. The narrow beam was scarcely adequate, but better than nothing, and acting on instinct, his companions edged closer to him as he played the small pool of light around the stacks nearest them.

"Lieutenant," he said, keeping his voice low and even, "I think you'd better check on the Cyberman. Jamie, go with her, please," he added. Jamie nodded, and together he and Argus headed for the far end of the hold. Once they'd gone, the Doctor turned a grave face to Victoria. In the watery torchlight, he suddenly looked every one of his four hundred and fifty years. His eyes were deep in shadow and all but black with unspoken fear; and somehow, she thought to herself, that was the most disturbing thing of all.

"We must find the TARDIS," he said. "I have a _very_ bad feeling about this."

She hurried to keep up with him as he darted down the nearest aisle, heading for the spot where they'd left the old blue box. As he rounded the corner, however, he stopped so abruptly that she almost ran into him, and she heard his next breath snag in his throat.

"Doctor, what's – "

"Stay here," he told her, his voice dull with foreboding, and then he pushed at the half open TARDIS door and disappeared inside.


	7. Chapter 7

Argus unshipped her rifle and peered around the next corner, trying to keep her breathing under control.

At her side, Jamie had drawn his knife for the comfort it offered; past experience told him well enough that even the Lieutenant's gun was likely to be of little use against a Cyberman, but Jamie had carried the horn-handled dirk his every waking moment since he was a boy of seven, and its weight against his palm was reassuring.

"What can ye see?" he hissed. Argus hushed him with a look, and then edged out of hiding, the weapon trained on the holding cell as she approached. Jamie followed close behind, shuttling his gaze this way and that, his ears pricked for the slightest sound. Cybermen could move with curious stealth when they needed to, and with so many pockets of shadow at their backs, the creature had a wealth of hiding places at hand.

Jamie backed neatly into Argus as she stopped dead. He had the knife firmly gripped at waist height, ready and willing to meet any sudden attack should it prove necessary, and he didn't relax his stance until she jabbed him in the ribs with an unexpected elbow.

"All present and correct," she said.

"Wha'?" He was still glaring into the shadows as if daring them to challenge him, so she turned and grabbed his arm.

"I _said_, it's still here. See for yourself!"

Jamie's fighting instincts weren't so easily mollified once roused, and nor was his rough and ready chivalry; while there was a woman present, his reflexes automatically put him on his guard, even if in this instance she was more heavily armed than he. So he was slow to turn, and even then, he kept his trusty blade front and centre as he approached the cell.

Insofar as Jamie would ever admit to fear – _real_ fear, the kind that pricked the skin with cold, breathless dread – he would confess to fear of the Cybermen. Twice so far he'd faced them, and each time the battle had been hard fought and even harder won. They were intelligent, merciless and almost indestructible, and yet, even now, he barely understood what these creatures really were beyond the threat they represented. He knew, on a bone-deep level, that he was as far from his Highland home as he'd ever been before, and that the danger they now faced made that once posed by the Redcoats pale into insignificance...and in the face of that, the young Scot was as helpless as a bubble on the tide.

All these thoughts had passed through his mind in one split second as he looked through the bars at the shackled Cyberman, but the sight drove them from his mind and, for long moments, all he could do was stare. The creature was not quite like the ones he'd seen on the Moon or on Telos. It was shorter and sleeker, more predatory in appearance, its exoskeleton very close-fitting and smooth and flexible like the skin of a seal. This was welded quite seamlessly to the helmet, which looked much more familiar with its rounded eyes and narrow slot mouth.

"An' all in chains," he said, scornfully. "Not so clever now, are ye?"

"You know nothing," it said. Then, without warning, it lunged forward with rattlesnake speed. Jamie stumbled back in shock, raising the knife instinctively, but the chains afforded the Cyberman no more than a little leeway. Once his heart had stopped pounding against his ribs, he leaned in once more and met that empty gaze.

"I know ye're safely locked up," he said, but there was now the tiniest quiver in his voice that he was powerless to subdue.

"They are coming," the creature droned.

All at once, Jamie felt a cold sweat spring up on the back of his neck. Despite the flat electronic intonation, those three words had carried the barest hint of something that sounded very much like triumph. He opened his mouth to speak, to demand an explanation from the thing, but found his throat bone dry and his mind a blank canvas of horror. Meanwhile, the Cyberman settled back in its chains once more, seemingly going dormant.

Argus materialised at his side. "What did it say?" she whispered. Then, without waiting for a response, she slammed the stock of her rifle into the cell door with a strident bang. "_What did you say?_" she shrieked.

"Hey, easy now," said Jamie, laying a gentle hand on her arm, but she shook him off and swung around, her eyes blazing.

"Four days we've had that...that _thing_ in the hold, driving everyone out of their minds! I said we should have killed it on sight, but oh, no, the Captain wanted it alive. And now it's going to kill us all!" She turned back and attacked the cell door once more with fists and feet, raging incoherently at the Cyberman. This time, Jamie set his jaw and seized her by the shoulder, dragging her away.

"Hush now!" he told her, fiercely. "This isnae gettin' us anywhere, is it?"

"But it said – "

"I ken what it said," he told her, cautiously relaxing his grip. "An' what we're gonna do is keep our wits about us an' tell the Doctor."

Argus seemed to shrink in her skin, and a look of mute apology flitted across her face as she collected herself and brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. When she looked back up into Jamie's eyes, she was almost smiling.

"You place a great deal of faith in him, don't you?" she asked.

"Aye, I do," said Jamie. "An' if you knew him a wee bit better, you would too."

"Well, let's hope I get the chance, shall we?" said Argus. "Come on. We still need to find the Captain."

From its niche in a particularly gloomy corner of the hold, the Cybermat watched them go. Only when their footsteps had died away entirely did it emerge, angling its antennae as fresh instructions flowed into it.

* * *

"_Victoria!_"

The Doctor sounded badly frightened. Victoria jumped like a mouse, and then hurried into the TARDIS to see him staring at the console, his eyes glassy with shock.

It was a wreck. Wires trailed from several large rents in the lower panels, blue-white sparks leapt and danced from point to point and the floor all around was littered with complex looking components, clearly ripped free with some force. The TARDIS evidently still had power, but the lights in the control room were flickering fitfully, and every few seconds they would briefly dim to almost nothing.

"What on earth's happened?" asked Victoria, her voice tight with worry. The damage to the console was not, in fact, uppermost in her mind. What concerned her most at this point was the Doctor's unblinking stare. She picked her way across the floor, taking care not to step on anything important along the way, and took him gently by the shoulder.

"Doctor, please say something..." she said, plaintively.

Only after a few seconds did he seem to snap out of his near catatonic state, but it was clear to Victoria that he was still badly shaken.

"Oh my word," he said. His voice was steady enough, but unnaturally distant, and Victoria stepped in front of him and tried to catch his wandering gaze.

"Doctor, the TARDIS!" she said; much more loudly than she'd intended, but she was by now horribly unnerved. In any case, her sharp tone seemed to have had the intended effect, as the Doctor's slack expression finally fled and his eyes came back into sharp focus. For a moment, he didn't say anything, but merely reached for the nearest console panel and picked up what looked, to Victoria, like a stray shard of cobalt blue glass covered in fine silver filigree. He turned this object to and fro in front of his face for a second and then set it back down with exaggerated care, exactly where he'd found it. And then he exhaled slowly.

Victoria watched this short performance with some trepidation, wondering if she was going to have to slap him. The prospect was unthinkable. But then he adopted a startling look of wild-eyed determination and reached for the switch that would close the doors – which promptly came away in his hand. This only seemed to increase his maniacal urgency, and he dropped the useless lever, darted across to the doors and shoved at them with all his strength, inching them closed.

Victoria decided she had had enough. Taking a deep breath, she crossed the floor, confronted the Doctor, drew back her arm...and gasped aloud as his hand shot out with blurring speed and seized her wrist.

"There's no call for that," he said, his eyes flaring just a little. "I'm quite rational, I assure you."

"You don't _seem_ very rational," she said, defiantly.

"That definition may depend entirely upon circumstance," said the Doctor cryptically, and then released his death grip on her arm as if nothing had happened.

"But Jamie's still out there," she pointed out.

"I know that, I know," said the Doctor, now sounding harassed. Though she knew, of course, that he tended to the mercurial, his current mood seemed to be on a switchback more acute than any she'd ever seen before, and she was feeling a little ill from trying to keep up with these swift and dizzying changes in his mental weather.

"Then why have you locked him out?"

"Victoria," he said, with extraordinary patience, "I would have thought that was self-evident. Someone has sabotaged the TARDIS. Not mortally, thank goodness, but even so, I don't intend to give them a chance to come back and finish the job!"

Victoria gnawed at her lip for a second before replying. "That's all very well, but..."

"But what?"

"What if they're still on board?"

"Oh."

That single syllable contained a wealth of subtext; none of it pleasant. Victoria watched several emotions fight for mastery of the Doctor's face before he seemed to come to a conclusion that galvanised him. Without a further word, he wrenched open the door that led to the TARDIS's living quarters and ducked through, head held low and shoulders hunched, almost as if he were expecting a confrontation, or an attack of some sort. He tilted his head, listening very carefully. Finally, he straightened up, edged out into the narrow corridor and looked both ways.

"Doctor?" she hissed. "Is there anyone there?"

He shook his head, his brow deeply furrowed. "No. Stay there. I'm going to lock this door behind me."

"You shouldn't – "

"Don't argue," he said, and then pulled the door closed without saying anything more. She heard the locking mechanism click, and then she heard the Doctor's footsteps disappearing down the corridor, light and rapid, and then silence reigned once more.

Almost. Victoria turned on the spot as something prodded her attention. Beneath the subtle snap and fizz of electricity from the damaged console, she could hear the softest of sounds. It was right at the limit of human hearing, but clearly coming from somewhere close by. She angled her head, trying to trace the noise, or at least to identify it, and as she circled the console, making sure to stay well away from the exposed wiring, she caught sight of the Doctor's large, battered old sea chest.

Her steps faltered and slowed, and now, as she moved, Victoria realised that she could hear someone weeping, pitifully and persistently. And as she took yet another trembling step, she realised that the sound was coming from inside the heavy oak chest.

Gathering the very last scraps of her courage – such as they were – she reached out and opened the doors.


	8. Chapter 8

As the doors of the trunk swung open, Victoria stumbled back a little in shock, and then dropped to her knees.

Curled up inside the cramped, dusty box, his chin on his knees and his eyes bulging, was Captain Prentice. His face was as white as cheese curd and clearly streaked with the livid tracks of old tears, and every so often a violent tremor would run through his huddled form.

She shuffled a little closer and reached out, tentatively, but as soon as her fingers lit upon his arm he whimpered and contracted himself into an even tighter ball, as if attempting to burrow through the floor.

"Captain? It's me," she said, softly. "Victoria Waterfield. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Has it gone?" he asked, his voice so small she could barely make out the words.

"Has what gone?"

"The rat," he said, and then cringed fearfully, burying his face in his arms once more.

_Rat?_ Victoria frowned to herself. There were no rats on the TARDIS, and she was equally sure that there couldn't possibly be any on the ship. Besides, she reasoned, how could a little rat frighten a grown man at all, let alone to the point where he was shaking in mortal terror? She turned over her shoulder and looked around the room, trying to staunch a small but insistent trickle of unease.

"There's no rat, Captain," she said, returning her attention to Prentice. "Nothing's going to harm you, I swear. Please won't you come out of there?"

"You promise?" he said, looking up, his hair in disarray. His eyes wandered, and settled on her face only for a moment before flitting across the floor as if searching for something. Something very small.

"Yes," she said, with flawless patience, talking to him as if he were a small child. "I promise. Take my hand and out you come," she added, reaching out to him again. He didn't shy away this time, which she took for an encouraging sign. He didn't take her proffered hand, though, but instead unfolded himself from the box, inch by painful inch, and then tumbled onto the floor on all fours as if even this slight effort had exhausted him.

It was at this point that the connecting door slammed back and the Doctor swept back into the control room, tugging distractedly at the cuffs of his coat, his face locked in a preoccupied scowl. It took him a few seconds to retune his attention to current events, but when he did, his eyes widened considerably and he took up station at Victoria's side, crouching down to examine the captain at closer quarters.

"Good heavens, what's going on here?" He bent down even further, trying unsuccessfully to catch the man's eye, and then straightened up again, looking deeply bewildered.

"I don't know," said Victoria, hesitantly. "He'd hidden away in that old trunk of yours. He's scared to death of a...a rat," she added, looking up into the Doctor's face, seeking some reassurance, or at least something more comforting than the sight of Prentice, who was now grovelling on the floor and whining from the back of his throat, the sound low and harsh and desperate.

But what she saw in the Doctor's expression was much worse, and for a moment, she quite forgot to breathe. For a split second, his normally soft and friendly eyes had narrowed, his gaze becoming scalpel-sharp and as cold as ice. Then it was gone, and so abruptly that Victoria was left wondering if she hadn't merely imagined it. The Doctor was now all solicitousness, and gently assisted Prentice, helping the dazed man up off the floor and leading him to a nearby chair.

"Victoria, fetch my cloak, would you, please?" he asked, without looking around. She did so, and watched him wrap it around the captain's quaking shoulders.

Just then, there was a brisk knocking, which soon resolved itself into a rattling, accompanied by the sound of Jamie's voice. His words were muffled, but he was clearly indignant at being shut out of the TARDIS, so Victoria hurried over and tried to open the doors. After a few seconds, however, it became apparent to her that there was no way she would be able to lever them apart, even if she had the strength to do so, which was unlikely.

"I'm sorry!" she called, raising her voice. "Wait there a moment!"

"_Oh aye, like I've aught else tae do!_"

"Well, there's really no need to be sarcastic," she said, pouting, and then called over her shoulder. "Doctor? I can't open the doors."

The Doctor had been studying Prentice in thoughtful silence, his head on one side. He looked up, and for a second an expression of deep misgiving crossed his face. He then crossed to the console and stared down into the hole where the door release lever should have been. It was trailing half a dozen torn wires.

"Oh well," he said, gloomily. "What doesn't kill me, as they say..." And then he picked up two of the bare wires and touched them together. There was a strident _crack_, and he staggered back at once, sucking at his scorched fingers and hopping up and down on the spot as the doors obediently swung open to reveal Jamie and Argus. Victoria did her best to ignore the sounds coming from behind her – the Doctor, still in pain, was cursing virulently, and it was a relief to her modest sensibilities that he wasn't cursing in English – and glanced between the pair of them as they stepped into the TARDIS.

"Where is it?" she asked, impatient for a report. "The Cyberman, did you find it?"

"Yes," said Argus, wearily. "Right where we left it. It's still chained up."

"But it _can't_ be."

"You're quite welcome to go and check," said Argus. Victoria held her tongue for a moment and looked the other woman over, and saw that despite her carefully maintained military posture, she was almost dead on her feet. Her eyes were sunk in shadow, her hands shaking infinitesimally and her lips so pale they were almost blue. The discussion, Victoria decided, would have to wait.

In any event, she was interrupted by the Doctor, who had apparently recovered from all ill effects of the electric shock and was now perfectly composed once more. He beckoned to Argus and then indicated Prentice with a subtle tilt of his head. The man was staring into the middle distance, no longer twitching and whining but now eerily still and sitting bolt upright in the chair.

"What's happened to him?"

"I was rather hoping _you_ could shed some light on that, Lieutenant," said the Doctor, very quietly, as he escorted her to her captain's side. "You know him better than I do."

"That's what you think, is it?" said Argus, just as softly, turning her face away from Prentice for the moment. "I used to know him. Up until we found the Cyberman, anyway. After that, he might as well have been replaced by a total stranger."

"It's obvious that he's suffered some kind of nervous breakdown," the Doctor replied, with a quick glance over at the captain. "But it's equally obvious that he didn't get like this in just a few days. Not impossible, I grant you, but highly unlikely all the same. It seems he's sabotaged my TARDIS and removed vital components. So, to cut to the chase, unless I can get some sense out of him and discover the whereabouts of those components, we're all going to die."

The sudden silence rang in everyone's ears for a moment, but when the Doctor spoke up again his voice was much lighter.

"Annabel," he said, encouragingly, "if you want to help him, and I know that you do, then I need the truth."

"How did you know my – "

"That's not important right now," said the Doctor, with a brief but genuine smile. "Let's make the poor man a little more comfortable, shall we? And then you can tell me what you're not telling me."

* * *

Together, the four of them gently shepherded the now almost unresponsive Prentice to the upper decks and into his private quarters. Victoria, from what she knew of ship's captains, had expected something large and palatial with brass portholes and a walnut desk, and was mildly surprised that this was not the case.

Prentice's room was both cramped and utilitarian, and once the man had been laid out on his narrow bed the rest of the party were left with standing room only. There was not another stick of furniture in sight save for a small steel bedside stand on which there stood a lamp and an empty plastic cup.

"Her name, so I've been told, was Sarah," said Argus, after a while. "She was nineteen years old, and the Captain was absolutely besotted with her." She smiled haltingly, not looking at the others as she went on. "The day after they were engaged, he was sent off to fight the front line war against the Cybermen. Of course, we should have been watching our backs, and we really should have been watching 82 Eridani IV. Because that's where they attacked, and that's where Sarah lived."

Jamie and Victoria were both studying the Doctor for the slightest reaction, but so far he might as well have been carved from stone. He stood in the slight shadow beside the cabin door, his hands neatly laced, watching the lieutenant intently as her sorry tale unfolded.

"Of the four hundred thousand colonists, a third were killed in the attack, and the rest were – we assume – converted." Argus sighed, looking down at the floor for a moment. "Sarah was one of those taken. In the space of six hours, Jim lost his fiancée, his entire family and his home planet. So yes, you're quite right, Doctor," she continued, turning at last and subjecting him to a flat stare. "This hasn't been building up for a few days. It's been building up for twenty-two years.

"They took him off combat duty immediately," she went on, perching as best she could on the edge of the bed and gazing down at his face. "They told him he couldn't be relied on due to the trauma. And of course, that just made his grief and anger fifty times worse, but he shut it all away, he locked it up tight and threw away the key. And since that day he's never even looked at another woman," she added. Her voice was perfectly cool, but as Victoria watched, she saw a wealth of exquisite pain blooming in Argus's eyes.

The Doctor had evidently seen it too, and he changed the subject with faultless tact.

"All that being the case," he asked, "I'm curious as to why he was chosen to lead the mission to capture the Cyberman."

Argus finally looked up at these words, and pushed her hair out of her eyes, which were rimmed in scarlet.

"He wasn't," she said, meeting the Doctor's gaze. "As I've already told you, this is a search and rescue craft. We were out here on a recovery mission, to investigate reports of a drifting ship. We were instructed to save lives where applicable and to salvage the cargo. We found no crew aboard, and no cargo either. Just one dormant Cyberman. The first we'd seen in almost five years."

The Doctor stepped out of the shadows now and approached the bed, glancing between Argus and her unconscious superior.

"So you weren't acting under orders, either of you?" he asked.

"Orders?" She let out a short, hollow laugh. "No. This is a vendetta. The Captain wants his honour restored, but more than that, he wants to see that thing suffer for what happened to Sarah. In fact, he wants to _make_ it suffer. I believe he'd happily dismember it himself in front of a mob of thousands, if you want the truth."

Victoria felt a chill run down her spine at this statement, and quite unconsciously raised her hand to her mouth in horror. It was quite unlike any human emotion she'd ever encountered. She missed her dear Papa, of course, and she had once hated the Daleks for taking him from her. But to burn for twenty years with a desire for revenge, the flame so hot that it destroyed everything in its path? That she found unfathomable.

It was Jamie who broke the silence with a nervous cough.

"Doctor, there's somethin' else," he said. "The Cyberman spoke to us. It said 'they are coming'. Who's coming?"

"The only 'they' that matters to a Cyberman, Jamie," said the Doctor, his cold blue gaze still locked with the lieutenant's. "You see, it really was woefully premature of Captain Prentice to celebrate the capture of the last Cyberman. It's not the last.

"And now," he added, "its friends are coming to fetch it."


	9. Chapter 9

"You might as well talk to me, you know," said the Doctor.

He'd been pacing up and down the aisle in front of the holding cell with his hands clasped behind his back, directing the occasional stern glance at the door. Now, though, he stopped and faced it, his head held high as he glared at the creature inside.

"Why have you drained the power cells?" he demanded. "There's a thousand times more energy there than you could possibly need."

"More is required," said the Cyberman.

"For what?" asked the Doctor, angrily. "You've put everyone on this ship in mortal danger, including yourself. Your friends won't get here in time, you know!"

Jamie, watching the confrontation from his perch on a nearby crate, frowned in puzzlement at what seemed to him to be a clumsy attempt to goad the Cyberman. Though he maintained the façade of a genial clown, the Doctor never wasted words; if he was occasionally garrulous, it was always part of some overall plan of action. But there couldn't be any possible gain in trying to provoke a soulless thing with no human feelings whatsoever. The Cybermen had their weak spots, true, but emotion wasn't one of them.

If that was indeed the purpose of the Doctor's observation, then it failed. The creature did not deign to answer. The Doctor stood and stared at it for a few seconds more, one eyebrow hiked, then planted his hands on his hips, hung his head and sighed harshly.

The sound of the door interrupted his evident aggravation, and as he looked up, Argus materialised from the shadows beyond the feeble circle of light.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"No, it won't listen to reason," said the Doctor, ruefully. "Still, it was a bit of a long shot." He paused fractionally, and then changed tack, tapping his chin in thought. "May I ask you a question, Lieutenant?"

"Of course."

"You said that the Cyberman was completely dormant when it was discovered. If that's true, why did you feel the need to chain it up and lock it in the holding cell?"

"It didn't stay dormant for long," she said, and suddenly, her expression was suffused with profound unease. "It showed signs of life from the moment it was brought aboard, so at first we took it to the infirmary and strapped it to a table. Within half an hour even that wasn't enough, so we brought it down here and locked it up. And it's been there ever since."

"Yes, well, I'm not at all surprised," said the Doctor, sharply, "given that the entire ship is effectively one giant electrical conductor. The moment it made contact with the deck it had access to all the power it could possibly want, and now it's seized control of your ship."

Argus blanched. Even in the low light, they could both see that her face had suddenly drained of all colour. At first Jamie was inclined to believe the Doctor's words had caused this reaction, but then the woman put a hand to her head and swayed slightly. He leapt down at once and tried to take her arm, but she shook her head and stepped away.

"I'm fine. It comes and goes," she said. "The radiation's worse down here than it is on the upper decks, that's all."

"Then you really shouldn't be here," said the Doctor, kindly but firmly. "Go back to your quarters and get some rest."

"No," she insisted. "I have my duties. While the captain is incapacitated, I'm in command of this ship, and I don't take that responsibility lightly."

"I'm sure you don't," the Doctor told her, "but there's nothing you can do down here, is there? Someone has to go through Engineering and find a way to re-route the electrical conduits. With any luck, that should stop the Cyberman from being able to siphon power from the ship via the superstructure."

Argus looked the Doctor up and down. "That 'someone' would have to be extraordinarily hardy," she said, in tones of heavy irony, "considering that by now, the engineering decks are saturated with enough radiation to fry an egg."

"I wasn't planning on doing any cooking," said the Doctor, through a wry grin.

"I'm serious. You won't last two minutes down there, you idiot!"

"Do you have any other suggestions, Lieutenant?" asked the Doctor, with a distinct edge to his voice. "If you do, I'd be only too happy to consider them."

Jamie felt a nasty lurch in his stomach. He wasn't sure he understood the scientific concepts involved, but it was clear to him from the context – and from the frightened gleam in Argus's eye – that going down to the lowest deck of the ship was, effectively, suicide.

"Doctor, can we talk about this?" he said, nervously. The Doctor promptly ushered him away a few paces and then lowered his voice to a velvet whisper.

"Don't you trust me?" he asked.

"O' course I do, but I – "

"But nothing. Really, Jamie, do you think I'm silly enough to go down there if I weren't perfectly confident of coming back again?"

"Yeah, I know," said Jamie, still not at all convinced, "but she said it's fair dangerous."

"She's quite right. It's very dangerous indeed," the Doctor said. And then he adopted a small, faintly self-satisfied little smirk and added: "To humans, anyway."

"Aye? Ye mean it won't affect ye?"

"Certainly it'll affect me," said the Doctor, "but not as fast as it would a human being. If I'm quick about it, I should be able to get in and out of there without any ill effects. You needn't worry about me."

"Well, I _do_ worry, and if it's all the same tae ye I'll keep on' worryin' until we're off this ship," said Jamie, quietly but fiercely.

The Doctor nodded and patted his arm. "Good man," he said, cheerfully, and then turned back to Argus. "I'm sorry," he told her, lifting his chin. "I don't see any other option. I have to try, at least."

"Doctor," said Jamie, as a thought occurred to him, "could we mebbe not jettison the Cyberman? Y'know, just toss him out the airlock?"

"Ah. A sound suggestion, yes, but with two little flaws. For one thing, the ship's trapped in the tremendously powerful electromagnetic field generated by the pulsar. If we opened the airlock right now the shields would collapse, and everyone on board would be dead in seconds." He paused, and cast a dark glance at the Cyberman before continuing. "In any case, I very much doubt it would go without a fight, and I'd rather not find that out the hard way."

"You're sure about this?" said Argus, regarding him dispassionately, although Jamie saw that the subtlest hint of admiration had nonetheless crept into her expression.

"Perfectly sure, yes." The Doctor set his shoulders and straightened his lapels, looking determined. "And now I think you'd better go, don't you? Look at you, you're exhausted."

She didn't argue this time. In fact, she didn't even appear to have heard him; her gaze had lost focus and wandered away into the middle distance. He turned aside and whispered to Jamie.

"Take her back upstairs and keep an eye on her," he said. "She's far sicker than she'd have us believe. Don't leave her alone."

"Is there nothin' I can do tae help ye?" asked Jamie, earnestly.

Even though the Doctor's logic was sound, he didn't like letting the man wander into danger on his own. For Jamie, this reaction had nothing to do with logic, in any case, but was something bred in the bone and etched on his soul. When he reached the age of manhood he'd sworn fealty to the Laird McLaren, just as had his father and his grandfather before him. And when he left Scotland in the TARDIS, for some time afterwards Jamie had felt a great weight of quiet guilt for – as he saw it at first – betraying his oath.

Gradually, however, and so naturally he hadn't thought to question it, Jamie found that his staunch allegiance had transferred itself to the Doctor instead. For better or worse, the strange traveller in the blue box was his Laird now, and commanded all the loyalty that that entailed even if it meant facing certain death.

"You can help me," said the Doctor, smoothly, "by doing as I ask. Now please, Jamie, we really don't have time for questions."

Jamie still had one more spark of rebellion left, and he opened his mouth to protest, but the Doctor raised a warning finger, and he subsided.

"All right," he said. "But I'm no' happy about this, ye ken? No' happy at _all_."

"Oh, I don't expect you are," replied the Doctor, his voice quite cool. "But what will be will be. Off you go now."

Once the young Scot had left, escorting Argus back to the relative safety of the upper decks, the Doctor simply stood in silence for a moment, head bowed as if collecting his thoughts. When he finally looked up once more, he caught sight of the Cyberman through the bars of its cell, and in the eerie green light his eyes seemed to shine like a cat's as he gazed, unblinking, at his old foe.

"We can still end this peacefully, you know," he said. "It's not too late. If you release the ship and let these people live, I promise I'll find a way to return you to your own kind."

"Your assistance is not required," it said.

"Is that your final word on the matter?"

"Yes."

"Then no further truce will be offered," said the Doctor, and turned away.

* * *

Victoria had remained with the Captain, feeling – as she'd put it – that someone ought to keep watch over the poor gentleman.

His stupor seemed to have lifted, but only to be replaced by abject confusion. He was painted with sweat, and his head turned this way and that on the pillow. While his eyes were open, she doubted that he was seeing anything clearly, if at all; his barely coherent mumblings seemed to suggest that he was suffering visions of some kind instead.

While searching the spartan room for a clean cloth which which to mop his face, she had earlier come across a half empty bottle of whiskey in his bedside cabinet. Victoria, while admittedly innocent in many of the ways of the wider world, was not so naïve that she missed the implications of this discovery, and had put the bottle back where she found it, shaking her head sadly.

"I thought I'd lost you," said Prentice, softly. She returned to the moment to see that he'd come to his senses and was now gazing up at her with a weak little smile. He raised one trembling hand, and Victoria, out of instinct, grasped it gently between her own. In contrast to his earlier fever, she noted, he was now unnaturally cold instead.

"How are you feeling, Captain?" she asked, trying to keep her tone as light as possible.

"Much better now," he said, and as she watched, she saw tears gathering in his eyes. "Sarah, I missed you. I missed you so much."

For a moment, Victoria couldn't think what to say. She was by no means unkind, and it seemed callous to disabuse him of his comforting hallucination for the time being. But he was now hanging on to her hand like a lifeline, and this sudden intensity was beginning to unsettle her.

"You should get some sleep. Everything's going to be all right," she said, wishing that someone would reassure her in turn. "The Doctor will be back very soon. He's gone to talk to the Cyberman."

At once, the captain's hand clamped down on hers, so hard that she whimpered. As she watched, his peaceful expression twisted out of all recognition, becoming an ugly snarl of bitter fury, and he sat bolt upright, his chest heaving.

"I won't have my orders disobeyed!" he snapped, releasing his hold on Victoria at last. She shied away in the face of his sudden and inexplicable rage, retreating to the far corner of the room as he shot to his feet and strode out of the door.

In her fright, she quite failed to notice that he had drawn his gun as he left.


	10. Chapter 10

In the end, Argus had refused all of Jamie's gentle hints that she should rest; and so, giving up for the moment, he followed her back up to the bridge.

She was now seated at the console with her head propped on one hand, studying the readouts with ferocious concentration. She seemed utterly engrossed in this vigil, so when she spoke it took Jamie a few seconds to realise that she'd addressed him.

"Your friend's not human, is he?" she asked, without looking up. Jamie shifted awkwardly and stared at her profile for a moment before replying, trying to analyse her expression for the smallest trace of guile or intent, but her face was quite immobile.

"No," he said, quite simply.

"What, then?" She swivelled the chair around and looked up at him expectantly.

"I dinnae know," said Jamie. "He's never telt us."

It was no more or less than the truth. As far as the Doctor's home planet was concerned, the only thing Jamie knew for sure was that the man was loath to return to it for reasons that were, in their turn, equally enigmatic. But not once in all this time had he mentioned the name of this world, or of his kind, and after a few initial queries on the matter Jamie had given up in the face of the Doctor's almost supernatural talent for changing the subject.

"Do you know _anything_ about him?"

"Not much, but – "

Right there, Jamie hesitated. How could he put into words what was scored on his soul? He trusted the Doctor not because of things he'd said, but because of things that were _not_ said because they didn't need to be. And in his life so far, Jamie had learned to value instinct over information.

"But what?" prompted Argus. Her green eyes were boring into him now.

"He's risked his life for ye once already by comin' here," said Jamie, earnestly. "An' he didnae have to do that, and now he's after doin' it again. Aye, mebbe there is but one thing I ken for sure about the Doctor," he went on, returning her piercing gaze with one of equal intensity, "but it's the only thing that matters."

Silence fell between them, thick and velvet, and it seemed to take an age for Argus to marshal her thoughts.

"You're very lucky," she said, quietly. "It's been a long time since I trusted anyone like that."

"Even the Captain?" asked Jamie. He couldn't stop himself.

"Yes," she replied, not quite looking at him now. "Even the Captain. He's beyond my help, anyone can see that."

"I dinnae think ye really believe that," insisted Jamie, folding his arms. "Ye don't seem tae me tae be a lassie who quits easy. Nae offence, mind," he added, with a tiny smile.

"None taken," she said, returning the expression.

"An' ye'll pardon me sayin'," Jamie went on, "but I reckon he means a mite more tae ye than that."

"Perceptive, aren't we?" said Argus, her voice sharpening a little; and then she seemed to relent, and her eyes softened once more. "Look, it's not what you think. I requested assignment to Special Ops for valid reasons. After the war ended we were faced with a major clean-up operation. We had refugees and wounded scattered across twenty-nine separate colony worlds, some of which didn't even have the most basic humanitarian provisions in place. I wasn't about to shirk my duty to them."

"That wasnae what I implied," said Jamie.

If Argus had any further statement, it was interrupted as the ship took a sudden lurch and then began to shudder, gently at first but with increasing violence, until the structure was groaning under duress and the very air seemed to blur. Jamie was almost thrown off his feet but managed to grab onto a stanchion, clutching it desperately as the ship pitched and bucked once more. Argus, meanwhile, had strapped herself into her seat and activated her communicator earpiece.

"Reese! Get up here now!" she snapped, and then severed the connection without waiting for a response. She turned over her shoulder and saw Jamie still clinging on for dear life, then waved an irritable hand at the seat next to her. "Buckle up, man, for pity's sake!" she shouted, above the piercing shriek of tortured metal.

Jamie waited for the slightest let in the rolling motion of the ship and then flung himself across the deck and into the empty seat, grabbing for the harness.

"What's goin' on?" he asked, but she ignored him for the moment. Her fingers skipped across the console as the door slid back and the pilot dashed onto the bridge, his eyes wild.

"It's a gravitational slipstream," said Argus, as Reese joined her at the console and strapped himself in with shaking hands. "We're being pulled out of orbit."

"An' that's no' very good news?" asked Jamie, leaning across the aisle and raising his voice slightly.

"Not really," said Argus, with grim sarcasm. "because we're heading straight for the path of the pulsar beam. And if we don't pull her up in the next two minutes the ship's going to be vaporised." She turned back to the pilot, who was staring fixedly out of the forward viewscreen with the light of the encroaching pulsar glittering in his eyes. He seemed almost mesmerised, and Argus clicked her fingers in front of his face, her expression twisted with gathering fear and frustration.

"Reese, snap out of it. We just need enough power for a thruster burn. Ideas?"

"I..." The pilot still seemed disconnected – not to mention stricken with terror – but then he shook himself and looked down at the console, frowning as he cast an eye over the readouts. "There's one chance. If we cut the power to the habitation decks it might just be enough."

"That'll shut down all life support systems," said Argus. "Give me a minute to evacuate."

"We don't have the time for – "

"_Find time!_" snarled Argus, and then slammed her hand down on the com switch, broadcasting her voice to the rest of the ship. "This is an emergency evacuation. All crew to Deck One immediately. I repeat, immediately. Argus out."

Exhaling harshly, she released the switch and turned back to Reese, who cowered away, anticipating another outburst of fury from his superior officer. None was forthcoming, however; she was now almost icy calm.

"Sixty seconds," she said.

* * *

Once the doors had slid closed behind him, the Doctor took a deep breath.

The air in Engineering was musty, heavily ionised, and even _smelled_ toxic. He sighed softly, coughed wretchedly for a moment, and then pulled out his handkerchief and tied it around his mouth and nose for the little protection it would offer. His eyes watered a little, and he blinked until they cleared. Then, keeping one hand on the railing for guidance, he made his way along the gloomy gantry, following the path of the copper-sheathed cables that ran overhead and away into the darkness.

Around him, the ship hummed with power. The hull was sucking up great draughts of energy from the pulsar with all the efficiency of a sponge, he knew, but this was being just as swiftly appropriated by the Cyberman for its nebulous purposes, which was putting immense strain on the conduits.

The Doctor heard rather than felt the sudden upsurge in the charge, but even so his catlike reflexes were only just sufficient to spare him instant death. The hairs on his arm stirred, and instinct had him lift his palm from the rail and step back smartly. Mere microseconds later, a blue-white arc of electricity lashed from the hull like a whip and earthed itself in the self same spot with a terrific _crack_.

He was left with a vicious ringing in his ears, and when this cleared, he bent and examined the stricken rail to see a hole punched clean through the alloy, the edges warped and melted.

"My goodness me, that was a close one," he said, with an oddly vacant smile, and then straightened up and moved on.

As he rounded the far corner and caught sight of the ship's huge turbine drives, however, he stopped in his tracks and listened carefully and intently. There was a scratching, skittering noise behind him, and it stopped as soon as he did, as if whoever was making it was trying their hardest not to be heard, but the Doctor's hearing was acute. He half turned and glanced back along the narrow walkway, but could see nothing in the failing light. Fumbling his torch from his capacious pocket, he aimed the thin beam into the darkness, but this revealed nothing of note.

"I know you're there," he said, confidently.

No response.

"You may as well show yourself," he added, his voice wavering slightly this time. He felt as if he were running short of stock responses to the situation.

The silence persisted. The Doctor stood for a few more seconds, head held high, and then shrugged slightly and turned to move on. Just then, the ship pitched violently to starboard and he at once lost both his balance and his grip on the torch, which skated off the catwalk and tumbled, end over end, into the depths of the ship's engines.

He landed badly and caught the back of his head a glancing blow on a nearby cable junction, which left him a little dazed. He reached out blindly, feeling for the torch as his vision swam, and was gratified when his searching hand landed on something smooth and metallic.

A split second later, his relief turned to horror as the Cybermat turned and leapt at his throat.

* * *

"Captain! Wait!"

Victoria had quite lost track of the man in the maze of narrow corridors, but continued to call for him nevertheless. She assumed that he was heading for the hold, and, acting on that conclusion, she picked up her pace and hurried down the stairs to the lower decks.

When she was halfway down, an alarm started to bray, echoing in the companionway and setting her teeth on edge at once. She stumbled and almost fell, and regained her balance only by clutching at the hand-rail. She jerked her head up as Argus's voice came through on the speakers, however, and listened as best she could.

The message was short but extremely ominous, and terror sank its claws into her. As the evacuation announcement ended, the klaxon continued to sound, and Victoria was gripped in the coils of the most dreadful moment of indecision she'd ever experienced in her young life. Instinct compelled her to run, to retreat to the safety of the top deck, to preserve her own life; but that would mean abandoning Prentice, who was almost certainly too confused by now to pay heed to the warning on his own account – and that, she knew, was wholly unconscionable.

Victoria bit her lip until it hurt. And then she continued down the stairs, calling for the Captain once more, raising her voice above the wail of the alarm.

Just as she reached the last step, the lights went out, plunging her into abrupt and perfect blackness. She yelped, reached for the wall and then flattened herself against it as her heart began to race and skip. She felt the panic rise up in her throat like a venomous snake, and tried her best to battle it down once more, but all of a sudden it was a little hard to breathe.

In fact, it was _very_ hard to breathe.


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor finally managed to clamp both hands around the Cybermat's lashing tail and drag it away from his throat.

Not quite fast enough, though. As he wrestled with the creature he could dimly feel a slow fluid trickle running down his neck and soaking into his collar, and in the low light he could see that the thing's razor teeth were stained with his blood as it snapped furiously, struggling to launch a further attack on him.

Panting harshly, tightening his grip even further as the thing threatened to slip from his sweat-slicked palms, he rolled over onto his side and smashed it against the metal grid of the catwalk as hard as he could. Once, twice, and then a third time, while it shrilled and squirmed and clawed at his wrist, bringing yet more blood. On the third savage impact, he heard a brittle cracking sound and then, taking a deep breath, he released his iron grip on the creature.

It lay motionless. The Doctor did the same, watching it warily for the slightest sign of life with that last breath frozen in his lungs. Then, finally exhaling with a relieved gasp, he scrambled to his feet and backed away a step or two, absent-mindedly wiping his bloodied fingers on his lapel. Only then did the pain seem to register, and he glanced down at the back of his hand to examine his injuries. The creature had carved a series of narrow slashes in his flesh, but they didn't seem to be mortal wounds, and he simply shook his head and looked down.

"You'll have to do better than that, I'm afraid," he chided the Cybermat, with a sly little chuckle and a finger-wag.

As if responding to this taunt, it twitched a few times, and then uncurled and righted itself with alarming speed. It spun crazily on its axis for a moment, clearly battle-damaged but evidently still belligerent, and the Doctor took a swift, panicky hop up onto the railing and edged away, trying to stay out of its reach. And then made the mistake of looking around and down.

Just here, the narrow gantry overhung the central well of the ship's engines, a wide circular cooling shaft that presented an uninterrupted drop of at least forty metres. A sudden gout of warm air billowed out of the shaft, and for a moment the Doctor clung onto the railing with his eyes tight shut as the violent updraught tousled his hair and flapped his coat tails.

The squeal of metal on metal brought him back to the present, and he snapped his eyes open once more to see the Cybermat creeping closer to him, its needle sharp claws scoring the rail and its tail weaving gently as it prepared to pounce.

"Oh my...er...um..." The Doctor looked down again at the dizzying abyss, and tightened his grip until his knuckles paled. A little way below him there was a ladder, but it was certainly not within immediate reach, and it was clear that it would be no simple matter to swing down to it even if he weren't wounded. He hesitated, and in that moment the creature sprang.

Blind reflex took over at that point, and the Doctor vaulted off the railing and into thin air. He hit the wall of the shaft in an impact that slammed the last of the air from his lungs, but managed to grab the topmost rung of the ladder with his one good hand. He dangled helplessly for a few precarious seconds, head spinning wildly, and then scrabbled for better purchase, finally planting his feet on a lower rung and dragging in a huge breath at last.

The Cybermat, deprived of blood for the time being, skidded to a halt on the railing above his head and peered over the edge. Its antennae waggled uncertainly, and then it inched closer, as if it were trying to gauge the distance between itself and its prey.

The Doctor kept it pinned in his sights. He didn't dare move, look away or blink. Another gust of hot, dry air roared out of the depths, and in the wake of this he felt his skin prickle painfully once more. The hull's electrical charge was building up again rapidly, making the stale air crackle and thrum. He stared at the encroaching Cybermat, then at the bare metal rung beneath his hand, and then sighed heavily.

"Well, this isn't going to be pretty," he muttered, and then bowed his head.

After a breathless pause, the bolt struck home with a flash and a bang that sounded like the end of the world. Two million volts slammed through the railing, and in response, the Cybermat screeched, ricocheted off the far wall and landed upside down on the catwalk, where it waggled furiously before flipping over once more. It then streaked into the darkness as if all the hounds of hell were in pursuit.

The Doctor had been bracing himself for inevitable annihilation, and it was only after a few seconds more that he opened his eyes a little at a time and ran a cursory check on his person, which still appeared to be intact apart from the minor injuries recently inflicted by the creature. It seemed that the ladder was somehow insulated from the ship's superstructure, a piece of superlative good fortune that he wasn't about to question for the time being. Plus, the Cybermat was gone, which also counted as a gain even if he'd been hoping against hope that the strike would blast it to atoms.

In fact, it seemed to the Doctor that his only remaining problem of any immediate concern was that he now had no way to climb back up.

He craned his neck up and looked at the devastation above. The metal was still glowing a sullen red, and what was more it had melted in parts, thick silver streams running down the inner wall of the shaft like treacle. Sighing with no more than mild annoyance, he turned and looked down instead. The ladder ran away into the unknown, disappearing in the Stygian darkness at the bottom of the shaft, and, unfortunately, presented his only realistic option.

Cursing softly, and wincing at the pain of his wounds, he adjusted his grip and then started to descend.

* * *

Victoria came to with a gasp, and for a moment she clawed at her throat as the memory of black, overwhelming suffocation resurfaced in her mind. In her confusion, she realised next that there was something covering her mouth, and she pawed at this too until strong hands seized her wrists to restrain her.

"Hush ye, Victoria, it's all right," said a familiar voice, and as her vision finally consented to clear a little, she looked up into Jamie's worried brown eyes.

"What happened?" she managed to ask him, through the oxygen mask. The words cost her dearly; her chest was aching badly and her lungs felt tight and cramped. Belatedly, she realised that her head was also a point of acute pain, and pounding heavily.

"They had tae cut the air supply to the lower decks," said Jamie, gently releasing her hands and then drawing a blanket up to her chin. "The Cap'n carried ye back up here. Easy now, easy," he added, as she struggled to sit up. "He bides fine. Dinnae fash yersel'"

Victoria, still groggy and not inconsiderably light-headed as well, was suddenly seized by the urge to laugh. It always seemed to her that Jamie became almost comically Scottish in stressful situations, and she thought it must surely be a benchmark of his concern for her welfare that she could barely understand his thick brogue at the moment.

Exhausted as she was, however, this amusement must have registered on her face, as Jamie raised one eyebrow at her.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm sorry," she murmured, reaching for his hand, which was still resting gently on her shoulder. Just then, an urgent thought struck home even through her mental fog. "Where's the Doctor?" she asked.

"He's doon in the engines," Jamie told her.

"But it's terribly dangerous."

"Aye, well," he said, with a tired shrug, "ye know what he's like. Anyhow, I dinnae reckon any of us is safe right now."

Victoria tried to respond, but she seemed to be lacking breath, and so subsided once more. As her head fell to one side, she looked past Jamie's shoulder at the far side of the infirmary, where Prentice was laid out on a cot with a silver blanket tucked around him. He appeared to be sleeping soundly.

Argus stepped through the door at that moment, and moved to Jamie's side.

"Well, we've re-established orbit, but it's even more unstable now," she said, her voice both flat and excruciatingly tired. "We've also restored minimal power to all decks, but the shields are now at critical low. And if we hit another patch of turbulence like that, we're finished, because we don't have enough power for another burn. Your friend had better pull the rabbit out of the hat for us, and soon, because we ran out of good news quite a while ago."

"He's no' reported back yet?" asked Jamie, looking up at her with a frown.

"Would I be here if he had?"

"I guess not."

"Forgive me," said Argus, suddenly looking chastened. "I know you're worried about him."

"Mebbe I oughtae go and find him?"

Argus shook her head firmly. "Sorry, no," she said. "I can't let you go down there. You'd never make it out again."

"I'll be cursed tae hell afore I'll abandon him," said Jamie, warningly, rising from his seat and looking her right in the eyes at close quarters.

"I can't make you see sense, can I?" asked Argus. There was a deeply speculative cast to her expression now.

"I've no' seen it yet," Jamie told her.

Argus didn't react for several long, strained seconds, and then she finally dropped her gaze and stepped aside. Jamie favoured her with a thankful nod, and then turned back to Victoria for a moment and touched her hand very lightly.

"I'll be back right soon," he said.

"I know you will."

She watched him leave, and then closed her weary eyes once more and tried her very best to keep her fear in check.

* * *

Left alone on the bridge, Reese wiped a heavy coat of sweat from his forehead and then tried to focus on the readouts. The shield density along the lower hull was down to twelve per cent, and even as he watched, it dropped another notch.

He kept his eyes averted from the forward screen. It was enough to know that the threat was there; every time he looked at it his heart started to race once more. Though he'd eventually managed to drag the hobbled ship out of the gravitational well, it had fallen into a much tighter orbit around the pulsar as a result. Their orbital path was also now highly inclined, and took them so close to the beam that he felt sick to his stomach just thinking about it.

"Then don't think about it," he murmured to himself, although this was far easier said than done. Nevertheless he made the attempt, slumping back in his seat and trying to breathe as slowly as he could.

A familiar sound interrupted his self-imposed meditation. It was the click of the radar. He snapped to attention at once, swivelled his chair and leant across to the scanner screen, peering at it intently. In the top right corner was the pulsar, and in the bottom left a distant blue giant, some nine or ten light years away. Between these two, however, he spotted a moving speck.

Reese turned up the resolution a little and cocked his head curiously. The sector was full of rocky debris, which was just one of the many things that made it so hazardous to traverse. He watched the object's path for a moment with bulging eyes, gnawing at his thumbnail quite unconsciously. And then, finally, he saw it bank slightly in their direction. It was a rescue ship!

He shot to his feet and staggered against the console with a head-rush born of naked relief, and then pressed his face to the viewscreen with his hands cupped, trying to spot the approaching ship through the glare of the enveloping gas. After a few seconds he finally caught sight of it, its flank gleaming brightly as it turned quite smoothly and easily and slid into orbit a little way from the outer edge of the nebula.

Only then did he realise what it was, and his head swam with horror.

It was a Cyber-ship.


	12. Chapter 12

"Doctor! Are ye there?"

No answer. Jamie shook his head, sighing harshly, and hopped down onto the gantry, which rattled and shook disconcertingly beneath his feet. The engine room was unnerving him a little, with its squeaks and groans and the constant ghostly howl of what sounded like a winter tempest coming from somewhere away in the distance. There were lights set into the near wall at intervals, but they were dull and dim and, at best, merely served to lend the numerous shadows greater depth and texture.

Jamie's hand dropped reflexively to his belt, and then he checked himself and released the hilt of the knife once more. It would be of no use down here.

He came at length to a breach in the walkway and examined it with some astonishment. The metal looked to have been blasted, and as Jamie edged forward, the gantry creaked threateningly, shuddered, and sagged a little further. He backed away at once and considered his options, but at that point, a familiar voice drifted up to him from the depths.

"Is someone there?"

"Doctor, is that you?" Jamie clung onto an overhead cable with one hand and leant out as far as he dared, trying not to make any sharp movements.

"Of course it's me! What are you doing down here, you stupid boy?"

The Doctor sounded annoyed, but suddenly, he wasn't the only one. Jamie scowled at this epithet and raised his voice in return.

"I'm no' a boy, and it seems tae me as if I'm saving yer skin!" He squinted down the shaft, but couldn't see a thing. "Are ye hurt?"

"I'm perfectly fine, I assure you. Now will you please get out of here?"

"Sorry," said Jamie, with a wry little smirk, "I couldnae hear that last part. I'm comin' doon."

He looked down at the head of the ladder, gauging the distance for a moment. The damaged section of walkway was tilted across and down over the mouth of the shaft, putting the ladder – in theory, at least – within reach. Beyond that, however, he could see that he still faced a precarious climb down, with no guarantee that the tortured structure would bear his weight. He hesitated momentarily, then shrugged and started down.

He had just set foot on the ladder when the Doctor shouted up to him once more. His voice seemed a little fainter, and the words were drowned beneath the roar of air from the cooling fans, so Jamie paused and cocked an ear.

"What did ye say?"

"I _said_, be careful. There's a Cybermat up there somewhere!"

The word sent a cold chill down Jamie's spine. He recalled well enough his first encounter with the Cybermen's vicious little robot pets, and had hoped never to face them again. On the other hand, he was already committed to his course, and far too mired in concern for the Doctor to worry about any but the most immediate threat. He looked back up the way he'd come, but there was no sign of movement, so he set his jaw and started down once more.

The air around him grew warmer and drier as he descended, and by the time he reached the bottom of the well, his eyes were stinging badly and he was suppressing the urge to cough. Down here the darkness was inviolate; Jamie waved a vague hand in the air, but couldn't see an inch in front of his face.

"Where are ye?"

"Here," said the Doctor, out of the blackness. He sounded very tired all of a sudden. Jamie followed his voice to the far side of the shaft, and then a narrow beam of light pierced the darkness and led him the rest of the way, at the end of which he found the Doctor sitting with his back against the bare steel wall, one hand pressed to his neck.

"I found my torch, at least," he said, weakly. "Surprised it survived the fall."

Jamie dropped to his knees at once and plucked the torch from the man's hand, leaning in to examine him closely. Blood was oozing steadily from between his fingers and running down the front of his shirt. In the low light, the spreading stain looked almost black. The Scot's eyes widened.

"Wha' happened?"

"Cybermat. Dratted thing," said the Doctor, scowling slightly. "I didn't think it was too bad at first, but I simply can't seem to stop the bleeding. Dreadful nuisance. And it's quite ruined this shirt, too. Will you look at it?"

Jamie was well used to the Doctor's habit of making light of even the most dire circumstances, but this was a shade too much. There were grey circles under the man's eyes, which made a stark contrast to the sickly pallor of his complexion, and he looked to be on the brink of death.

"Is there no other way oot o' here?" he asked. It was clear to him that the Doctor was barely fit to stand, and would certainly not manage the long climb back up the ladder.

"Don't know." The Doctor shook his head, which caused a fresh rivulet of blood to pour from the wound in his throat. "Got down here. Couldn't see a thing. Felt a bit dizzy."

His eyes started to drift closed. Jamie, verging on panic now, reached out and shook his shoulder firmly.

"Hey, hey," he said, urgently. "Stay awake, ye hear me? An' don't try tae move. I'll go look about."

Every single instinct Jamie possessed was urging him to remain at the Doctor's side, but logic butted in and told him that he would best serve matters by finding another way to get them both back up to the upper decks. He lingered for a moment more, watching the Doctor's eyes carefully, and then climbed to his feet and set off around the gentle curve of the shaft, playing the beam of the torch over the wall as he went.

On the rearward side, to his immense relief, he finally located what looked like an elevator, a very rudimentary contraption slotted into the narrow gap between the ship's two main turbine drives and presumably installed for ease of access to the lower levels. It looked rickety and didn't provide him with as much reassurance as he would have liked, but it was a chance.

He retracted his steps to the Doctor, who – thankfully – was still both alive and conscious, and bent to help the man to his feet. Jamie did his best to support him, and together they made their way to the service elevator.

"Jamie?" said the Doctor, once the elevator had begun to rise.

"Whist noo," Jamie scolded him. "Mind yer strength."

"Why did you come after me? I distinctly remember telling you not to."

"Aye, well, where'd we be if I _always_ listened tae ye?" Jamie raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, folded his arms and snorted lightly. "Anyhow, fine help ye are to us while ye're bleedin' tae death down here. Ye dinnae have to thank me 'cause that's no' why I did it. But I'll not be lectured on obedience when I ha' an obligation tae think on."

The elevator creaked on in the ensuing silence for a few more seconds, in which the Doctor stared levelly at Jamie across the space between them. Despite the pain, exhaustion and blood loss, his eyes were remarkably bright and clear in that moment.

"You're a fine young man, James McCrimmon," he said, softly.

At last, the elevator car ground to a halt at the top of the shaft, and Jamie wrapped an arm around the Doctor's waist once more to assist him. They found themselves on a broad platform at the top of the deck, right below the ceiling. The air up here seemed to be both cooler and clearer, for which Jamie was very grateful. He started to urge the Doctor along the walkway, but the man shook his head firmly.

"No, no," he said, resisting stubbornly, and with surprising strength given his present condition. "We still need to re-route the conduits."

"Doctor, you're gonnae die if we don't get ye seen to soon!"

"If I don't finish the job I came down here to do," said the Doctor, his voice slurring badly now, "it won't just be me who dies. Now help me over to that access panel, please. Behind you," he added, helpfully, as Jamie's brow furrowed.

With assistance, the Doctor dragged himself over to a yellow-painted cabinet on the bulkhead and then twisted the handle, but to no avail. Grimacing with frustration, he turned to Jamie.

"Locked. Do you think you can get it open?"

"Aye, I reckon so," said Jamie confidently, and drew his knife, ramming the blade into the gap at the side of the panel just below the locking mechanism. He applied gentle pressure, but when this yielded no result he leant on the hilt a little harder, and eventually felt something begin to give. There was a smart popping sound, the lock snapped, and the panel swung back on its hinges.

The Doctor took the torch from him and aimed it into the opening, studying the colourful and complex tangle of wiring thus revealed. Jamie peered over his shoulder, but the whole thing was a mystery to him. He fervently hoped that the Doctor could make more sense of it.

"I think I'm going to need a little help here, Jamie," said the Doctor at last, hanging his head.

"What d'yae need me to do?"

"You'll have to do it. Don't worry, I can talk you through it, but I...um..."

"What's the matter?"

By way of reply, the Doctor raised one hand into the light. It was shaking badly.

"You see," he murmured, "the problem is if I make one tiny mistake with this wiring I'm likely to blow the ship to atoms. I know you can do this. I have every faith in you. Quickly now," he added, stepping back and keeping the light trained on the panel.

Jamie looked panicked, but only for a fraction of a second. Then he squared up to the task in front of him and followed his instructions, disconnecting four red wires at the Doctor's instigation and reconnecting them to a different set of terminals further down the board. This was followed by another instruction, and another, and another, and Jamie followed every one to the letter.

"There," said the Doctor, at last, with a small, lopsided smile. "Now all we need to do is reset the whole system." He reached for a large black lever mounted at the side of the panel and pulled it downward with a sharp tug, and then started to count down under his breath. "Five, four, three, two, one..."

He flipped the lever back into the upward position once more, and his eyes twinkled with childlike glee as the lights around them flickered, stuttered for one hesitant moment and then brightened. After the darkness of the cooling shaft, Jamie found himself dazzled for a second and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the unaccustomed glare.

When he'd blinked his eyes back into some semblance of focus and lowered his hand, he looked around. And then, with acute foreboding, he looked down instead.

The Doctor was lying in an untidy heap at his feet, his face devoid of all colour. Jamie felt his heart slam against his breastbone, and then crouched to examine the unconscious man. Though his medical knowledge was scarcely adequate to the task, he at least knew where to search for a pulse. Pressing his fingers into the soft flesh beneath the Doctor's jaw, he was vastly relieved to feel a rapid fluttering beneath his touch.

All of Jamie's senses were on high alert, so he heard the faint scuttling behind him despite the stentorian roar of the ship's engines. His eyes narrowed, and he rose and turned in one smooth movement to confront the Cybermat as it advanced on him.

"Oh aye?" he said, unsheathing his trusty blade. "Tae the death it is, then. _Creag an tuire!_"


	13. Chapter 13

Argus stood by the viewscreen, staring out at the distant Cyber-ship.

"Why have they stopped?" she asked, tapping her fingers against the glass in a brief, nervous tattoo. "We're sitting ducks here! I don't get it."

"They're playing with us," said Reese, quietly and bitterly.

"Doubtful. That's not the way Cybermen work." She sighed heavily and turned away from the screen. "If they're staying out there, either it gives them a tactical advantage or they're waiting for something. Or it's too risky to come in after us," she added, after a moment's thought, and then stopped to consider the implications of this, her brain suddenly racing nineteen to the dozen.

The young pilot was evidently doing the same. "Well, then," he said, haltingly, looking up at her with embryonic hope blossoming in his eyes, "can we use that to our advantage?"

"Possibly, assuming we can work out why," she replied, with a slight shrug. "It's all a moot point until we can restore power, anyway. Maybe they're just waiting for us to die in here," she went on, with a humourless smile.

She watched Reese's expression falter, and instantly regretted her morbid observation. At twenty, the pilot was the youngest member of the crew, and only on his third mission. It was, she reflected, probably the first time in his life he'd encountered any real danger, and right now that fact couldn't have been any more obvious.

"When's the last time you were home?" she asked, taking the seat opposite him and trying for a kindly expression, which didn't entirely come naturally to her.

"Five months ago," said Reese. "Just for a day, though."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, I signed up for this." He managed a small smile at last. "It's all right. I was only going to do one tour. How was I to know I wouldn't even finish it?"

"Don't talk like that," said Argus, softly. "We're all going to get out of this."

"Except Mr McEnery," he retorted.

She had no answer. There _was_ no answer. There had already been one death and she had no way of assuring him there wouldn't be more. Argus looked down at her hands as they twisted together in her lap, and then steeled herself to meet his gaze again.

Just as she did so, however, the lights on the bridge brightened abruptly and the console flickered into life once more. The pilot spun around and stared, his face aglow with joy.

"He did it," said Argus. "I'll be damned, he actually did it."

"I'll get us out of here," said Reese, reaching for the flight panel with eager hands; he stopped, however, as she gripped his arm.

"No, wait."

"What for?"

"We're fine here for the moment," said Argus, her lips thinning. "If we leave orbit now, they'll be after us like a shot, and we can't possibly outrun their ship, we both know that. This is a waiting game, and I suggest we play along for now. At least until we know what they have in mind.

"And until I've had a chance to talk to the Doctor," she added, her features sharpening a little. "That man knows more about all of this than he's letting on."

* * *

Jamie advanced a few steps, but then the Cybermat darted forward, claws clicking on the metal plates, and despite himself, he jumped a little. He'd been bracing himself, expecting it to pounce, but its movement seemed curiously erratic. It stopped a little way away from him and then rolled one mad and bulbous eye in its socket, almost as if looking him up and down in contempt. Then it swivelled from side to side and, finally, made a dash, trying to dodge around him.

It was clearly trying to make another attack on the Doctor. Jamie swore, then spun around and dived for it, grabbing at the creature as it prepared to launch itself at the unconscious man. The thing was disturbingly powerful for its size, and as Jamie's hands closed on its tail and dragged it backward, its claws scored bright silver lines in the deck plates.

"Oh no ye don't, ye wee scunner," he growled, breathing hard, trying to decide on a plan of action. His knife lay where he'd dropped it, just a bare few inches away from his hand, but having secured a desperate grip on the Cybermat, it was taking all of his strength just to hold it in place and prevent it from savaging the helpless Doctor.

He elected to risk it. Momentarily removing one hand from the creature, he grabbed his knife, then wrestled it onto its back and stabbed down as hard as he could at the narrow interstice between its head and thorax. The Cybermat squealed, sounding eerily like a living, breathing creature in its death throes, and thick white smoke began to pour from its mouth. Jamie steeled himself, withdrew the knife and rammed it home again, and again, and at last – to be sure – he twisted the blade in its innards.

He kept his grip on the thing for a few seconds more, and then yanked the knife out and struggled up into a sitting position, panting for breath. As he watched, it twitched, curled, uncurled once more, flopped over onto its side...and then lay quite still. Jamie hesitated, then reached out, picked up the small corpse and examined it briefly with a look of faint disgust painted on his face. Then he casually tossed it over the edge of the platform and listened as it clattered against the pipes once or twice on its way down.

He then scooted over to the Doctor and patted the man's face.

"Come on noo," he said, applying a little more vigour to the task. "Ye cannae be deid. Ye're a tough auld coot."

"What did you call me?" the Doctor muttered, then opened his eyes and smirked up at the Scotsman.

"Och, dinnae scare me like that," Jamie chided him, then helped the Doctor to his feet, where he swayed a little, but otherwise seemed in surprisingly fine fettle given his injuries.

"Will ye make it back up top?"

"Oh, I should think so. One way or another," said the Doctor with a good-humoured smile, tugging out his handkerchief and mopping up the flow of blood; which, remarkably, seemed to have slowed a little at last. Nevertheless, Jamie lent him an arm as the two of them moved off, heading back to the upper decks.

"Good job, by the way," said the Doctor.

"Eh?"

"The Cybermat. Well done. It was very brave of you."

"Oh. Well, it wasnae much trouble."

"Let's hope it's dead now, hm?"

"Aye..."

* * *

Victoria looked up as Jamie escorted the Doctor into the infirmary, caught sight of the crimson stains on his shirt, and leapt to her feet at once, covering her mouth in horror.

"Victoria...really, I'm quite all right. Don't fuss," he said, as she fretted over him for a moment. Taking her hands in his own, he looked at her closely. "See? I'm fine."

Her lips trembled. "But the blood – "

"It looks worse than it is, believe me." He sank down onto a nearby chair and looked down at himself properly for the first time in the bright light. "Oh, I say. Make that a _lot_ worse," he amended, and then cocked his head at Jamie. "I'm sure there's a sawbones of some description on board. I suppose I'd better get this looked at, hadn't I?"

Jamie nodded, and left the room in search of help. When he'd gone, the Doctor turned to Victoria once more.

"Never mind about me, how are you?" he asked, his face a picture of concern. "Jamie told me what happened."

"Oh...I fainted, that's all," she said, trying to sound dismissive. She was still in some shock and trying her best to conceal that fact. Though she'd so far been through thick and thin with the Doctor, she had never before seen him so badly hurt; and she knew he was putting a brave face on things, because it was what he always did.

"That's _not_ all. You could have died, and how would I forgive myself if you had?"

"But I didn't," she told him, and patted his hand fondly.

"What about the Captain?" he asked, turning over his shoulder to look at Prentice, who was still sleeping like the dead.

"I'm not sure," said Victoria, following his gaze. "I really don't know what's wrong with him. He seems fit and healthy enough and he ought to be awake, but..." Her voice grew smaller, and then tailed off altogether.

"Yes," said the Doctor, suddenly sounding as if he were lost in thought. "Something's not quite right there."

Though his expression was as guarded as ever, Victoria could see something in his eyes that looked very much like suspicion, but before she could press him on this, they were interrupted as Jamie returned with the lieutenant. The Doctor looked her up and down at once with a degree of surprise.

"Don't tell me you're a doctor as well?"

"We don't have a medic," said Argus, easing his hand away from his throat and examining the bite wound with a small knot in her brow as he obligingly lifted his chin a little. "I've had basic training in field surgery, which is the best you're going to get right now. Sorry." She turned and snapped her fingers at Jamie impatiently. "Get the sewing kit. Cabinet in the corner, second shelf down."

"Sewing kit?" the Doctor echoed, blanching a little as he realised the implication of her words. "Is that really necessary?"

"You'd prefer to go on bleeding, would you?" asked Argus, her lip curling slightly. "It'll need four stitches at most. Now be a good gentleman, please."

The Doctor grumbled a little, but subsided, and merely looked askance at her as she opened the box, fished out a fine, curved needle and threaded it with a practised air. Victoria, watching this, privately suspected that the Doctor's momentary panic was more for show than anything else. The truth of it was that he was simply a stubborn and recalcitrant patient and hated admitting to weakness, but there was certainly nothing lacking when it came to his pain threshold.

He sat in obedient silence as the lieutenant quickly and expertly sewed up his wound, hardly wincing even when the needle pierced his flesh. In a matter of minutes she was done, and standing back to study her handiwork with a critical eye. And then she met the Doctor's gaze once more, and held it.

"Thank you for restoring the power," she said, evenly.

"Don't mention it."

"There's a Cyber-ship in orbit."

"I thought as much," said the Doctor, as he idly brushed his fingertips over his neck, exploring the stitches.

"They're staying put for now," said Argus, still watching him intently. "We don't know why."

"You don't?" said the Doctor, looking faintly incredulous. "I would have thought that was perfectly obvious. There's far too much radiation in the local area, and the Cybermen won't risk coming too close to the pulsar unless they have to. They're probably quite content to sit and wait until you make a move instead."

"They think they can smoke us out, do they?" she said, scornfully. "Now we've got the shields back up, we can hold out indefinitely."

The Doctor raised one elegant eyebrow at her. "And you have unlimited supplies of food on board, do you?"

"Ah..." Argus seemed to deflate, and finally dropped her gaze.

"You see my point?" asked the Doctor, gently.

"So what do we do now?"

He stood up and adjusted his collar and cuffs with considered care.

"We open negotiations," he said.


	14. Chapter 14

"I thought it was about time we had a little chat," said the Doctor, sitting down on a crate and regarding the Cyberman coolly through the bars of its prison. "And this time, you _are_ going to talk to me."

Argus lurked behind his shoulder, her arms tightly folded. She had insisted on bringing two armed security officers with her, and the Doctor had – a trifle uncharacteristically, thought Victoria – consented to their inclusion without the smallest objection. She wondered what he was planning if it necessitated the presence of two heavily armed men. And then, while re-examining that thought in more detail, she felt a cold trickle of apprehension.

She now stood to one side and watched the negotiations, with Jamie close by. She was frightened out of her wits in the creature's presence, but trying as hard as she could to maintain an outward appearance of calm. To this end, she kept her gaze pointedly averted from the cell and focused on the Doctor instead.

It was a constant source of amazement to her that the man's moods seldom suited the occasion. Right now, he seemed almost eerily at ease, and was even smiling faintly and pleasantly. He'd sauntered down to the hold and stopped by the TARDIS to change his shirt and clean himself up before confronting the prisoner; and now here he was, sitting down to talk with one of his deadliest foes as if there were absolutely no bad blood between them whatsoever.

"What do you want?" asked the Cyberman.

"Well, first of all, I thought you ought to know that your friends are here," the Doctor told it, "and we've also destroyed your Cybermat."

"Wait. What did you say?" said Argus, cutting across him, her eyes widening. "How the hell did a Cybermat get on board?"

"Ah," said the Doctor, turning to her with a look of acute embarrassment camped on his face. "Well, the answer to that would be that I brought it here. It stowed away on my ship. I'm terribly sorry. But we've dealt with it now, I promise you. It poses no further threat."

"It's caused enough trouble already!" said the lieutenant, her voice like a white hot whip. "If you hadn't brought that thing aboard then it...I mean the Cyberman couldn't...I mean..." She trailed off, unable to express herself adequately through the sheer force of her raw fury. The Doctor shied away from her, fiddling awkwardly with his bow tie for a moment.

"What's done is done, and I did say it wasn't intentional," he told her, collecting himself with a visible effort. "I think the recriminations can wait for a more convenient time, don't you?"

Argus still looked as though she were contemplating physical violence, but eventually acquiesced and merely offered the Doctor a short nod.

"Thank you," he said, with good grace, and then turned back to the Cyberman and resumed his interrupted conversation with a deep frown. "Now, we don't mean you any harm, but if it's necessary – and then only if you _make_ it necessary – we'll certainly defend ourselves against you and your kind. Do you understand me?"

"I understand," it said.

"Will you work with me to end this peacefully?"

"Peace is irrelevant."

"Oh for pity's sake!" the Doctor snapped, hopping down from his perch and gesturing vaguely and angrily. "Can't you please stop speaking in riddles?"

"There can be no peace. Humans are a threat to the Cyber race."

"Well," said the Doctor, coldly, "I suppose that makes things a little clearer, at least. But tell me something," he went on, subjecting the creature to a highly analytical glare, "what makes you so important that your associates are willing to lay siege to this ship in the most dangerous sector of the galaxy? It's not out of concern for your welfare, I'm sure."

"I will not say," it said.

The Doctor was just about to respond when the doors at the far end of the hold swished open and Prentice strode into the midst of the gathering. He subjected everyone to a commanding stare and then turned that expression of ice cold anger on the Doctor, where it only intensified.

"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded.

"Captain, I really don't think you're – " the Doctor began, but Argus moved into the breach, stepping between the two men and looking Prentice up and down with evident concern.

"Are you all right, Captain?" she asked, gently.

"I've never felt better," he told her, curtly. "Now, what the devil's going on here?"

"The Doctor's trying to negotiate with the Cyberman."

"To what end?" He looked utterly incredulous.

"We're holed up in the nebula and there's a Cyber-ship waiting for us outside," she said, as calmly as she could manage in the face of the fire burning in his eyes. "If there's a chance we can talk our way out of this, I think it's worth a shot."

"If I might interrupt?" said the Doctor, genially, moving between the two and giving them both a friendly smile apiece before continuing. "I don't think we're going to get any useful answers out of our metal friend here, but perhaps we don't have to."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" asked the captain, still teetering on the brink of outright hostility.

"I mean, we can always question its accomplice instead," said the Doctor, his tone still light and conversational, maintaining the other man's gaze. "The Cyberman couldn't leave its cell. The hold was flooded with radiation, but in a lead-lined box, well..." He turned and nodded meaningfully at the holding cell. "It was safe enough in there. But _someone_ sabotaged my ship."

He stepped back a pace, and his cool stare was now little short of calculating. Prentice bridled at once, his expression twisting into one of abject outrage.

"Are you suggesting that I was responsible?"

"No," said the Doctor, quietly. "Not you." And then he turned to Argus.

The lieutenant reacted with inhuman speed, reaching for her side-arm at once, but the Doctor was quicker.

"Hold her!" he shouted at the security detail. The two men reacted out of pure reflex, responding to a voice of unquestionable command, and seized the woman's arms as she suddenly set to fighting like a tiger. They were big men, but even so it was clear that Argus was fuelled by the strength of sudden madness, and they battled hard to restrain her from launching herself at the Doctor. The hold echoed from one end to the other with her screams of incoherent rage.

"What on earth is going on?" asked Prentice, both bewildered and aghast at this sudden turn of events, his mouth hanging loose as he watched his first officer's struggles.

"Be quiet," said the Doctor bluntly, without looking around, and then rooted in his pocket for a moment and withdrew a small diadem on a silver chain, which he started swinging in front of the lieutenant's wide, staring eyes.

"Annabel," he said, evenly, "listen to my voice. Just watch the light and listen carefully. There's no need to be afraid. You're safe. You're feeling completely relaxed. Watch the light, Annabel..."

The woman's eyes followed the swinging gem as it refracted a thousand tiny rainbows across her face. The Doctor continued to soothe her with a litany of soft words and assurances. And after a few seconds more, she sagged in the guards' grasp with a tiny sigh.

"Sit her down and back away," said the Doctor, still in that same serene voice. The men obeyed, easing Argus down onto a nearby crate and then retreating in puzzled silence. The Doctor paid them no attention, but continued to swing the glittering crystal back and forth.

"What is your name and rank?" he asked.

"Annabel Catherine Argus, First Lieutenant," she said, sounding as if she were drifting somewhere in the hinterlands of sleep.

"And do you know who I am?"

"The Doctor," she breathed. "The enemy."

"Not _your_ enemy," the Doctor said. "The Cyberman has been controlling you, but you can break free. You can do it, Annabel."

"I can't," she said, and now her voice sounded strained and unhappy.

"Yes, you can. You're much stronger than you think. Give me your hand and it'll all be over, I promise."

"Enemy," she repeated, but all at once, her right hand began to stir, and then rose from her lap with glacial slowness. The Doctor stowed the crystal away in his pocket once more and straightened up, watching her very carefully as she reached out. And then he took her hand in his, which seemed to break the spell. Argus cried out, shot to her feet and – taking the Doctor quite by surprise – flung her arms around his neck and sobbed like a little girl.

"Oh, there now, shh. It's all right. It's all over." He chuckled softly, and then tactfully disentangled himself from her frantic embrace and urged her to sit down once more. She dragged in a deep, shivering breath and then looked up at him with huge, red-rimmed eyes.

"It's over," she said, distantly, and then slumped to one side in a dead faint, her hair falling across her face.

Everyone reacted at once, and the hold was filled with raised voices. Prentice was the first to move, however. He stepped forward, his mouth opening, doubtless to insist upon an explanation; but the Doctor merely turned and silenced him with a look before turning to the guards, who were watching him like frightened mice.

"Take the Lieutenant to her quarters and see she gets some rest for now," he instructed them. "Don't leave her alone, but don't try to talk to her if she wakes up. I'll be along presently."

Victoria hadn't been able to process any of this. It had all happened so fast and left her in a state of high confusion. Now, though, as the guards lifted the unconscious Argus and carried her away, she tugged on the Doctor's sleeve to attract his attention.

"How did you know she was being controlled?" she asked, looking over at the silent Cyberman for a moment.

"Ah, well," said the Doctor, with a small, knowing smile. "Two things, really. Do you remember when Argus set foot inside the TARDIS for the first time?"

"Yes?" said Victoria, expectantly.

"Did she react with any surprise at all? People generally do, I find, especially when it comes to the 'bigger on the inside' concept. That tends to flummox most human beings. But she didn't even pass comment on it. And why was that?" He lifted a finger in declamatory fashion to accompany his next words. "Because she'd already been in there once before, when she was smashing it up."

"She attacked me. I remember now," said Prentice, behind him, his voice unsteady. He still seemed shell-shocked. The Doctor turned around and gave him a look of consummate sympathy.

"It wasn't her fault," he said. "Try to bear that in mind. I'm positive the Cyberman tried to control you at first, Captain, but it failed."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well," the Doctor replied, suddenly looking very evasive, "I was getting to that part. But I do suggest we don't discuss this in front of our guest," he added, shooting a brief, wary glance at the holding cell.

"Why not?" asked Victoria.

"Because if I'm right, we may just be able to use it to our advantage."


	15. Chapter 15

The Doctor bent over the unconscious Argus for a moment and examined a patch of pale scar tissue on the back of her hand. It seemed to fascinate him, and he pursed his mouth in contemplation before gently replacing her arm at her side and rearranging the blanket.

"When did it happen?" he asked, lifting his head at last and turning to Prentice.

"Near the end of the war, just after she was assigned to my crew," said the captain, sitting on the foot of her bed. He looked drained and old. "We were mopping up in the Kepler 62 system. I was an old hand, but Argus was fresh out of the Academy. I don't know, maybe she wanted to prove herself. She took off alone, following a distress signal from one of the uninhabited outer planets."

"Which, I'm guessing, turned out to be a trap?"

Prentice nodded wearily. "Correct," he said. "There was a platoon of Cybermen down there, and she didn't stand a chance. By the time I got there the process had already begun."

"She seems to have recovered well enough," the Doctor observed.

"The surgical team took care of everything."

"Everything?" asked the Doctor, although it was clear from the tone of his voice that this was not exactly a question.

"Except the chip in her brain," said Prentice, glancing away for a moment.

"Yes. Just as I suspected."

The Cyber conversion process was ruthlessly efficient, and the Doctor knew that the medical team had done as well as they possibly could in saving Argus from its ravages. The removal of the exoskeleton and the outer appendages would have been a simple enough matter, although the neat rings of scar tissue on her hands and arms were very telling to someone who knew exactly what they were looking for. However, the microprocessor was buried deep in the frontal lobe and wired throughout the cortex, and there was no way of removing it without incurring massive neurological damage.

The Doctor brushed his fingers lightly over a tiny scar just beneath her hairline, and looked reflective.

"I thought former converts were detained for public safety?" he said, at length, tapping his chin. He waited for a few moments more, but there was no response, and the atmosphere in the room was now distinctly strained. He looked closely at the captain. "But then you didn't report her, did you?" he asked, not unkindly.

"I was her senior officer!" said Prentice sharply. "I was responsible for what happened. You're telling me I should have had a raw recruit hauled off to a secure unit for the rest of her life because she made a simple error of judgement?"

"No, I'm not," the Doctor replied, a picture of calmness. "In fact, I would probably have done exactly the same thing in your situation. I take my own responsibility to Jamie and Victoria just as seriously. Do you imagine I don't?"

"I apologise, Doctor," said the captain, looking remorseful. "I appreciate there's nothing you can do."

"Well..." The Doctor scratched at the back of his neck in thought. "There might be. It's possible I can deactivate the chip with an electromagnetic pulse. I have the facilities aboard my ship."

"Then let's do it," said Prentice, rising eagerly from his seat, but the Doctor lifted a hand to stop him.

"Not yet," he said, picking his words with great care. "Firstly, the TARDIS is still out of commission. I need to find the missing components before I can do anything. And secondly," he went on, "I don't want to sever the connection between the Lieutenant and the Cyberman just yet."

The captain reacted with confusion. "I thought you already had?"

"By no means," said the Doctor. "I've merely put it under her conscious control. I hope so, anyway," he added, with a tiny frown, "because all our lives may depend upon it."

"What are you planning to do?"

"For the moment," the Doctor told him, sitting down at Argus's bedside and looking down at her face with his eyes full of strange sentiment, "I'm just going to keep an eye on her. If she's still human when she wakes up, then there may be hope."

"And if she's not?" asked Prentice.

The Doctor didn't answer at once. Instead, he reached for her side-arm and drew it from its holster, then cradled the weapon in both hands and stared blindly at the wall.

"If not," he said, very quietly, "I'll do what must be done."

* * *

Jamie and Victoria, at a loss for the time being, had found themselves on the observation deck at the very top of the ship; and despite the perilous circumstances in which they'd found themselves, Victoria couldn't help but admit to the matchless beauty of the sight that met her eyes.

The ship was now at the apex of its orbit, high above the binary system, presenting them with an unrivalled view. To one side, at the centre of a gorgeous spiral of orange gas that shaded to first to yellow and then to blinding white as it was drawn inward, was the brilliant, flickering speck of the pulsar. Some way away was the helpless wellspring of that glowing vortex: a dim red star, grossly distorted by the immense gravitational pull of its miniature companion and, little by little, being ripped apart.

Victoria's knowledge of astrophysics was hazy at best, but together with the things she'd picked up from her father and Mr Maxtible, she had also learned a few things here and there during her travels with the Doctor, and had managed to cobble together a rudimentary understanding of what she was looking at. Or thought she had, at least. Her only mistake lay in trying to explain things to Jamie and finding that she was not, in fact, equipped for the task.

"You see," she said, confidently, "the smaller the star is, the stronger the gravity."

"How's that work, noo?" He looked from her, to the star, and back again, one eyebrow hiked.

"Really, Jamie," she admonished him, good-naturedly. "Haven't you heard of Sir Isaac Newton?"

"Some Sassenach scientist, I'll be bound," he said, disparagingly.

"He was one of the greatest scientists who ever lived," she insisted, with mock severity.

"Better'n the Doctor?" asked Jamie, turning to her with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

"Perhaps not," she admitted, with a little laugh, feeling a little of her tension unwind in that moment.

In truth, Victoria had often speculated as to the boundaries of the Doctor's intellect. He was certainly an expert in a great many scientific fields, and an enthusiastic dilettante in twice as many besides. He didn't seem capable of boredom and could find something of extreme interest in almost anything, and was usually as eager as a small child when pointing these out to his companions.

She wondered if the Doctor were at all typical of his race. From what few references he'd made to them, Victoria had formed a mental picture of an intensely stifling, restrictive society, with little time for fun or gaiety. If that was the case, she concluded, then small wonder that the Doctor had taken it into his head to flee. They could surely have had no patience at all with his numerous idiosyncrasies.

"Mind, he's too smart fer his ain good sometimes," Jamie was saying.

"I don't think you're being entirely fair," said Victoria, pouting at him. "The Doctor always gets us out of trouble, doesn't he?"

"Aye, an' half the time it's a heap o' trouble he's got us intae in the first place," he retorted. She was about to remonstrate with him when she saw a fond smile playing about his mouth, and knew that he was only teasing. Even if the statement were grounded in truth, she knew that there was nowhere else in the world that Jamie would rather be than at the Doctor's side.

Victoria cast her eye out over the nebula once more, and only then did she spot the tiny, distant gleam of the Cyber-ship, parked in a much higher orbit than their own. The sight sent an instinctive shudder down her spine, and she crossed her arms as if warding off a chill.

"What do they want with us?" she asked.

"Mebbe they just came lookin' for their pal?" Jamie suggested, although he did not look at all convinced himself. Nevertheless, she shook her head emphatically.

"No," she said, still staring fixedly at that bright point of light. "There's something else, and I'm afraid we're all in the most terrible danger."

"Hey, I'll tak' care o' ye," he said, raising his chin and adopting a fierce stance. Despite herself, Victoria had to suppress a giggle at the sight of this caricature of manly determination. He deflated at once and subjected her to a mildly irritated glare. "What's so funny, eh? I saw to that Cybermat a'right."

"I'm sorry," she said, colouring a little, and then calming herself. "You did very well. You weren't hurt, were you?"

Jamie cleared his throat a little awkwardly and drew down his sleeves to cover the angry red scratches on his arms. Victoria noticed, but tactfully elected to pretend she hadn't, and then sought a change of subject. However, with the matter of their predicament uppermost in her mind, this proved to be more difficult than she'd imagined.

As she turned away from him for a moment, she caught sight of the Cyber-ship once more, and as she did so her heart skipped in fright. It was turning. Gracefully and slowly, to be sure, but it was visibly turning, gliding out of orbit, entering the outer reaches of the nebula...and heading straight for them.

* * *

On the bridge, Reese had noticed the same thing. He stared at the radar screen with bulging eyes and watched the blip fall inward, dropping out of orbit like a stone. For a moment he hoped against hope that the other ship was simply snared in the star's gravitational well and plunging to oblivion, but then he saw it make a modest course correction, and he let out a strangled whimper.

At last, a routine response cut through the thick fog of panic. He sucked in a deep breath and activated his communicator.

"Code red! Code red! Captain to the bridge!" he said, his voice high and tremulous.

It was only a handful of seconds later that Prentice strode onto the bridge, and even in his state of distraction it occurred to the young man that the captain must have already been on his way when the call went up.

"What's going on?"

"Sir, they're on intercept," stammered Reese, giving his superior officer a look of glazed grey terror.

"So it's come to this," said the captain flatly, taking his seat. "Well, we're just going to have to make a run for it. Plot an evasion course and wait for my coordinates."

"They'll catch us, sir," said the pilot.

"They certainly will if you don't get us out of here," said Prentice. "Now carry out that order, pilot."

"Yes, sir."

Reese's hands were shaking badly, but he reached for the panel and fired the starboard thrusters in sequence, peeling the ship out of orbit and away from the pulsar. Once they were correctly aligned, he powered up the turbines and watched the needle inch toward maximum, silently urging it on as a light coat of sweat sprang up on his forehead.

"What's the delay?"

"Not enough primary power to the warp drive, sir!" said Reese, desperately. "Ten more seconds!"

"I said _now_, pilot!"

The needle hit the red line and Reese punched the drive switch.


	16. Chapter 16

Argus opened black eyes in the darkness.

The air was hot and oppressive, and laced with the unpleasant scents of ozone and scorched metal. In front of her lay a sprawling galaxy of tiny lights in every conceivable colour, and she ran her gaze over the console, which was covered with arcane symbols. Yet somehow, those weird sigils seemed to writhe and twist as she watched, and easily revealed their meaning to her.

Now she lifted her head a little. Above the console the screen let out onto the vast gulf of space, dominated by the broad wash of the pulsar nebula. Against this blinding backdrop, and dwarfed by its scale, a little black dot moved. Argus watched, impassive and unblinking, as it turned with infinitesimal slowness and then, without any warning, blasted out of the nebula leaving a bright trail of blue-white plasma in its wake.

She didn't smile. It was impossible. But a certain chilly satisfaction suffused her being at the sight, and she spoke without turning her head.

"Follow them," she said, in a voice that was flat and dead and not her own.

"Yes, Controller," said an identical voice, and she felt herself pressed back into her seat for a second as the ship accelerated in pursuit of the fleeing vessel. Then the craft pierced the warp barrier and the G-force cut out at once, leaving them travelling in a bubble of dead silence with their quarry pinned in their sights.

"How long to intercept?" she asked.

"Thirty-four minutes and nineteen seconds at current speed and heading," said the second voice.

"Maintain course," she said, still not taking her eyes off the screen.

"Yes, Controller."

The ship sped on in silence for a few seconds more, and then she cocked her head in sudden puzzlement.

"What is that noise?"

Argus opened her eyes again, and this time they were their normal sea-green hue. She stared at the ceiling of her quarters, slowly and carefully reassembling her most recent memories. After a minute, she lifted one hand from the bed and looked at it. It seemed to be wrong, somehow; she knew this on an instinctive level but she couldn't think why. She flexed her fingers experimentally, frowned, and then allowed her arm to fall once more.

Only then did the real incongruity finally filter through to her, and she turned her head to the side to find the source of the sound that filled the room.

The Doctor was sitting with his chair tipped back a few inches and his boots propped on her desk, apparently quite at ease and – here she blinked a few times to clear her vision, convinced she was still hallucinating – tootling away on a brightly painted recorder.

"You've got to be kidding me," she said, her voice slurring slightly.

He stopped at once and lowered the instrument, looking slightly abashed, and then dropped it into his inside pocket.

"I'm sorry," he replied, "I trust I wasn't disturbing you?"

Argus struggled up, and then bit back a cry and clutched at her head for a moment as it clanged with pain that threatened to make her eyes water. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone again, and she allowed her muscles to unwind a little at a time.

"What was that music?"

"Lovely little tune, isn't it?" said the Doctor, pleasantly. "It's called 'Rounding the Horn'. It's an old nautical song. I picked it up last time I was in Plymouth, which would have been, let me see now...about 1886, as I recall, in a charming little pub called The Brown Bear. And then I ended up arm-wrestling five Danish sailors for a bet." He lifted his gaze for a moment, his eyes sparkling brightly with remembrance, and let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh. "I almost won, too!"

"1886?" asked Argus, curling one eyebrow.

"Do forgive me, my mind's wandering," said the Doctor, a little too glibly, but Argus quietly chose to abandon her line of inquiry. Nothing, she felt, could possibly make this disconcerting little man any stranger than he already was. Besides, her fractured memories were beginning to reassert themselves now, and all at once there was something else very much on her mind.

"I'm very sorry for what I did to your ship," she said, blushing slightly.

"Couldn't be helped," said the Doctor, briskly. "Nobody's going to hold you responsible." He paused, and twiddled his thumbs for a moment as he went on. "I don't suppose you remember what you did with the missing components, though?"

"I..." she began, and then wound down. Though the hateful memory was becoming clearer in her mind with each passing second, and she remembered ripping into the console with her bare hands and pulling out various bits and pieces at the behest of the Cyberman, she couldn't recall anything after that. But there was something else coming to the fore now, and she zeroed in on it with a whimper of despair.

"Jim!" she cried, suddenly. "I stunned him! The Cybermat...oh, I remember now...is he all right?"

"It's quite all right, Annabel. Really," the Doctor insisted, raising his hand placatingly. "The Captain's fine. He doesn't blame you."

"I blame _myself_," she said, bitterly.

"Then you need to get past that," he told her. "Right now it's very important that you focus. Very important indeed."

She fixed him with a look. She wanted to say that she _was_ focused. That she'd never been more focused in her entire life. Except it would have been a lie; there was a constant susurrus in the back of her brain, as if one hundred thousand voices were infesting her mind, sharp and insectile, trying to beguile her.

"I was dreaming," she said, instead, and then wondered why she'd told him. But all the same she couldn't deny that there was something about the Doctor that prompted her to confide in him.

"Oh, I know. You were talking in your sleep."

"I was?" She winced.

"And saying some particularly interesting things, too, might I add."

"It wasn't just a dream, was it?" she asked, quietly.

"No, it wasn't." His expression was profoundly sober for a moment, then he brightened a little and asked: "How are you feeling?"

"Dreadful," she said, sitting up on the edge of her bed and trying to clear her head, "but don't try to change the subject. What was I saying?"

He now looked vastly uncomfortable, but she stared him down relentlessly, and at last he let his chair drop and leaned forward, returning her gaze.

"The Cybermen have some kind of collective intelligence at close range," he said, at last. "I've never been entirely sure how it works. But by connecting itself to you, out of necessity, the one in the hold has also plugged you into the collective, including those on the Cyber-ship."

"Do they know that?"

"I shouldn't think so," said the Doctor, after a hesitant moment. "If they did, they'd almost certainly be putting up a fight. But while they remain unaware, we have a chance."

"A chance to do what?" Argus waited for a response, but now the Doctor wasn't looking at her any more. She sighed. "You want me to kill them, don't you?"

"I want you to stop them," he said, firmly, looking back up.

"The only way to stop a Cyberman is to kill it," she retorted, "and considering you took my gun from me, it seems we both know that."

"You're very perceptive, Lieutenant."

"Thanks," she said, drily, "but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather that wasn't my epitaph. So," she went on, lacing her hands together on her knees, "what do you need me to do?"

* * *

"If they get within transmat range, we're finished."

"I'm well aware of that," said Prentice, sharply. "Do you think you can shake them off?"

"I'll try, sir," said Reese, piloting the ship through a crowded planetary system and past the rings of a looming gas giant with precious little room to spare. Privately, he knew it was a lost cause. The Cybermen's technology was far in advance of their own, and their ship both faster and more heavily armed. But in his terror he knew only one way to react to Cybermen, and that was to flee. He had no stomach for battle, having signed up for Special Ops when it seemed like a safe and simple option. And he knew that they would be very lucky if the Cybermen merely decided to kill them rather than opting for conversion.

The door opened, and the Doctor's young companions dashed onto the bridge.

"Hey," said Jamie, catching his breath, "did ye ken that – "

"Yes, we know," said the captain, without turning around.

"Are they going to catch us?" asked Victoria, her eyes wide as she watched the scanner screen, which showed the flickering blip of the Cyber-ship, steadily gaining on them.

"Not if I have anything to do with it."

"Jamie..." said Victoria, her voice small and frightened. She clutched at his shoulder, and he put an arm around her for what little comfort he could afford. Then he glanced around the bridge, his brow furrowing.

"Hey, where's the Doctor?" he asked.

"I'm here."

The Doctor stepped into the light, leading Argus, who seemed slightly disorientated, although steady enough on her feet. He turned at once to Prentice and gestured impatiently; and the captain, too surprised to raise any questions for the time being, merely nodded, climbed out of his seat and allowed the lieutenant to take his place.

Once she was settled, the Doctor bent and looked at her very closely.

"You understand what you have to do?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so," she replied, trying to smile.

"Once they know you're there, they'll do anything they can to block you," he told her, gravely. "I'm very sorry, but I can't promise you this is going to be easy...or safe. But you're the only one who can do it."

"Well, Doctor," she said, this time with a weary grin, "you didn't think I'd let you have all the glory, did you?"

"That's my girl," he said, and patted her shoulder before straightening up and retreating a little. "Whenever you're ready, then."

Argus closed her eyes and sat back. After a few seconds her breathing slowed, becoming deeper and harsher. She twitched, her fingers curling and clutching at the arms of the chair, and then her mouth fell open slightly and she began to pant like a wounded animal.

Victoria edged over to the Doctor and touched his arm nervously. "Is she all right?" she whispered.

"For now, yes."

"Is this going to work?"

He finally turned and looked down at her. She'd been expecting a smile, a fond reassurance or one of the Doctor's habitual knowing winks. Instead, his misty blue eyes were filled with abject sorrow, and the sight chilled her to the bone.

"I simply don't know," he said.


	17. Chapter 17

The crew of the Cyber-ship were wreathed in anticipatory hush as they closed in on their prey, and through this silence, Argus gingerly moved her consciousness from one to the other like a shade.

_How many are there? _said a gentle voice. It was no more than a suggestion nestled at the very back of her mind like an early childhood memory. She jumped a little, startled. It had been akin to hearing someone speak up right behind her shoulder in a dark and empty room.

_Doctor, is that you?_

_Who else? _He sounded as if he were charmed by her bewildered reaction to his presence. _How many?_

_Nine,_ she said, uncertainly, then counted again to be sure. _Yes, there's nine of them_. She kept her own thoughts as still as she could and touched on each Cyberman only lightly and briefly, not wanting to alert them to her presence. As she passed through the navigator's mind, however, she risked turning its head a little and then peered out through its eyes at the distant shape of her own ship, its plasma trail a glowing curve against the blackness as it banked slightly.

_Don't do that_, the Doctor warned her. She flinched, then slackened her grip on the creature's cybernetic synapses and backed away. It twitched once, then shook its head and returned to its duties.

_Which one? s_he asked, suddenly feeling lost and alone.

_The Controller_.

_It's too strong. Much stronger than the others. I can't_, she said, plaintively.

_Yes, you can._

"No, I can't!" she shrieked. The Doctor sat back, removing his fingertips from her temple at once. He didn't look even vaguely perturbed by her outburst, but Argus nonetheless subjected him to a poisonous glare. He reached out once more, but she slapped his hand away, her mouth twisted with anger.

"Why can't _you_ do this?" she hissed. "You're the one with the...the damn Jedi mind tricks!"

Now the Doctor looked deeply affronted. "I was only trying to assist you," he said, severely. "But since you ask, my 'mind tricks', as you call them, don't work on Cybermen. Do you think for one moment that I'd put you through this if they did?"

"I'm sorry," she said, hanging her head. She looked exhausted and close to tears.

"No harm done," he told her, with a paternal smile. "Rest for a moment and we'll give it another go. But you must try to control your frustration. Any strong emotion at all is going to give you away at once." He then got to his feet with a light sigh and looked over her head, his eyes landing on Prentice. "Captain. May I have a word?"

Without waiting for confirmation, the Doctor seized Prentice by the elbow and ushered him to an alcove at the rear of the bridge, where he lowered his voice a notch before continuing.

"Does the Lieutenant have any close family?" he asked.

"What? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Just answer the question, please," said the Doctor, with the softest song of impatience in his tone.

"No," said Prentice, after a pause in which he realigned himself to the Doctor's interrogatory stance. "She has no family. She applied to the Academy after her parents were killed in the war."

"No brothers or sisters? A lover, perhaps?"

"Nobody," said Prentice, shaking his head sadly. "Why do you ask?"

The Doctor cast a sidelong glance at Argus and then dropped his voice even further. "Because she needs something to hold onto. A reason to keep fighting, do you understand? I'm giving her all the psychological help I can, but I'm a total stranger."

"I'm sorry, I really don't know anything that would help."

For a moment, the Doctor subjected him to a calm, penetrating, and highly analytical look, and after a second, the captain felt as if that stare were burrowing into his own mind instead. Then the Doctor abruptly broke eye contact and the moment passed, and before Prentice could react in any fashion, the other man had turned away.

Meanwhile, Jamie had been watching the lieutenant closely. Though he couldn't swear to it, every so often he thought he saw a strange silver flash cross her eyes. She wasn't looking at him, though. She wasn't looking at anything in particular. She was merely gazing into the middle distance as if heavily sedated. The Doctor's return, however, seemed to rouse her from her fugue, and she looked up at him as he approached.

"We don't have much longer," he said, taking his seat in front of her. "Another fifteen minutes and they'll be within range."

"Oh? So there's no pressure, then?" she replied, sarcastically.

"There never was, Lieutenant," said the Doctor, and then reapplied his touch to her forehead.

* * *

On the bridge of the Cyber-ship, the Controller rose from its seat, and then immediately wondered why. It ran a spot check on its neural pathways – a process that took a little less than one sixteenth of a second – and then a basic virus scan, but neither identified any obvious reason for the transient motor malfunction. It sat down again.

_That wasn't right, was it?_ said Argus.

_Not quite what we were looking for, no_, the Doctor replied, thoughtfully. _Let's try the pilot instead._

Argus concentrated. The illusion of movement was palpable, almost as if she were a physical presence aboard the Cybermen's ship rather than a ghost in their machine. She supposed that this was merely her mind attempting to fill in the blanks, finding this unsettling discorporation far too difficult to process.

_Stop thinking about it._

_Sorry,_ she said, automatically, and then stole into the pilot's mind and set up camp. It squawked as its defence circuits immediately registered the unauthorised intrusion.

"Controller!"

"Yes?"

"Eleven minutes and forty-one seconds to intercept," said Argus, finally seizing control of the Cyberman's voice unit with not one moment to spare before hastily commandeering the rest of its systems. This split second victory was accompanied by a rush of emotion that made her feel almost queasy: a heady blend of relief and aborted terror. This was also seasoned with a sudden twinge of pride as something else occurred to her.

_Did I just become the first person ever to hack a Cyberman?_

_I do believe you did, _said the Doctor, with what sounded like tolerant amusement_. And now l suggest you concentrate on the task in hand. And for heaven's sake, remember what I said about keeping your emotions in check. You're all over the place._

_Right, yes._

She reached out for the ship's controls. And then she made the mistake of glancing down at her hand as it moved, and the sight caused a sudden, chilling lurch of body horror. The memories of her partial conversion were still clear in her mind – as she suspected they would always be – and to be confronted with such a perfect reminder of it momentarily left her both physically and mentally paralysed.

Argus continued to stare at the metal hand in front of her as it hovered over the instrument panel, and, after a moment, it began to tremble.

* * *

Victoria watched the Doctor and the Lieutenant warily from the confines of Jamie's comforting arms.

She had only the vaguest idea of what was going on. The two of them were as still as statues, and formed an eerie tableau. Argus was slumped to one side in her seat, her eyes closed and her face deathly white; and the Doctor had his arm outstretched, fingertips laid light against the side of her head. Occasionally his lips would move, but just barely, and she couldn't make out a word he was saying.

She ran her helpless gaze around the bridge and saw the captain. He, too, was staring at Argus, and while his posture was perfectly composed and his expression all but a perfect blank, there was something in his eyes that he couldn't conceal any more. Something that prompted Victoria to slip away from Jamie and move over to him. She took his arm very gently, as if she were handling fine bone china.

Prentice started a little, and then turned his head. At such close range, there was no mistaking the redness of his eyes...or, indeed, the sentiment that flowered there.

"You _must_ tell her," she said.

"Here? Now?" he asked, uncertainly. There was a catch in his voice.

"Yes, here and now," she insisted. "Before it's too late."

"But what would she want with – " he began, but Victoria cut him off, gripping his arm tightly now.

"Everyone's entitled to a second chance, Captain," she said, offering him a fond smile that, all of a sudden, spoke of wisdom far beyond her tender years. "This is yours. Go to her. Tell her the truth. She deserves that much, and so do you."

She retired to a discreet distance and watched as he crossed the floor, his steps halting and hesitant. He stopped, still unsure of himself, and glanced back at Victoria, who merely gave him an encouraging nod. Then he reached out, brushed Argus's hair back and leant down to whisper very softly into her ear.

* * *

_It's not real, Annabel. Now throw the warp drive cut-out._

It was no use. Argus remained rooted to the spot, her fear and loathing invading every last tiny nook and cranny of her mind and threatening to drown her. And as that black, murderous tide rose, she could feel the growing puzzlement of the Cyber-ship's crew as they sensed an emotion – as alien as all human emotions were to them – reverberating through their collective mind like a sharp discord.

Then something else took its place. Something that cut through the swirling terror, washed it away at once and wrapped her in its powerful embrace instead. She reacted with a burst of unfettered joy that lit up her mind like a firework, and then sought the Doctor's consciousness.

_Did you hear that? s_he asked him, almost laughing with happiness.

_Yes, I heard it,_ he told her, sounding a trifle embarrassed. _I'm afraid I couldn't help but eavesdrop. My apologies._

_Oh, it doesn't matter! I don't –_

_But we still have a job to do, don't we?_ he reminded her, gently.

_Sorry. Of course,_ she said, and then composed her thoughts once more; no easy task with this newest revelation warming her heart. She felt childlike, giddy, bursting with life, and supremely confident. She brushed aside the last rags of that disturbing flashback with ease now, resumed control of the pilot's body and grasped the cut-out lever. It wouldn't move, however. She tugged on it a little more firmly.

_Engage the manual release first, _said the Doctor, patiently._ Red switch on the right._

She complied, flipping the release switch and reaching once more for the lever. This time, to her relief, it moved smoothly, and the Cyber-ship dropped out of warp and began to shudder, veering dangerously off course. Argus wrenched her head up and stared out of the pilot's eyes as the screen filled with the glare of a massive blue star that lay directly in their path. The Cyber-ship bucked and rolled and then spiralled headlong toward the surface of the star at close to light speed. She cried out instinctively, and in that moment, the rest of the Cybermen turned as one and focused on her.

The Controller sprang out of its seat like a striking cobra and seized the hapless pilot by the throat, dragging it away from the console as it flailed and squealed.

_Get out! Get out NOW!_

Argus pulled out of the pilot's mind and resurfaced from her trance at the Doctor's urgent command, coughing and gagging, her hands flying at once to her neck.

She could still feel the Controller's powerful grip crushing her throat, squeezing the very life out of her. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she convulsed, and her breathing became hoarse and desperate...and then ceased altogether.


	18. Chapter 18

The Controller finally released the other Cyberman, and the creature sagged at once, slumping to the deck with its head at an unnatural angle and blue skeins of electricity crawling over its helmet. It gazed down at the corpse for a few moments more and then, turning, motioned to one of the other crew members to take its place at the helm.

"Disable external wireless connections," it said.

"Yes, Controller," said the replacement, its hands moving over the console for a moment.

The Controller resumed its seat and then gazed out of the screen at the looming star. There was no fear in its brain. For a Cyberman, the emotion was not only illogical but impossible. However, it was clear that mission failure was imminent and that was not to be tolerated. It turned to the pilot.

"Engage the warp drive," it said.

"Negative," the pilot insisted. "The core is offline."

"Restart all systems."

"Yes, Controller."

The temperature on the bridge was climbing rapidly and perilously. A wisp of smoke rose from the console, and a silver hairline crack split the screen from one side to the other. The ship shuddered in deep distress as it picked up speed, hurtling toward annihilation.

The pilot successfully re-engaged the warp drive just as the ship plunged into the star's corona, and for a second, every light on the bridge winked out at once. Then the ship blasted through the warp barrier, diving straight through the heart of the star at eight hundred times the speed of light. The mighty blue giant trembled, wavered and then imploded as its outer layers were drawn in upon the expanding core. And then the colossal shock-wave blew it apart.

The Cyber-ship rode the wave, screaming out of the resulting supernova. Then it soared like an eagle through the yawning interstellar gulf, banked sharply and picked up the chase once more.

* * *

For long seconds, everyone stared in overwhelming shock. Then Argus suffered one final spasm and slid slowly from the seat, crumpling to the floor of the bridge. Her face was drained of all colour and her eyes were glazed and sightless.

"No...oh no..." Prentice fell to his knees at her side and lifted her head, his hands shaking. And then he looked up and saw the Doctor, who seemed to be rooted to the spot, his mouth slack with disbelief. "What have you done?" he spat, his eyes blazing.

"I didn't do this," said the Doctor, joining the captain at her side and looking her over, his brows lowering. He ripped open the collar of her flight-suit and pressed his fingers into her neck for a moment with an expression of fierce concentration written on his face.

"It's all right," he said, after a very tense interval. "She's not dead." Only then did he meet the captain's bewildered and panicky gaze. "It's some kind of psychic trauma. When the mind goes through a very vivid experience, you see, the body can sometimes react to it just as if it were real."

"What the hell happened to her in there?" asked Prentice, still wavering between fear, relief and anger, all of them now flapping loose and quite undirected as he struggled to process recent events.

"There'll be time to talk about that later," the Doctor told him, and then reached into his pocket, rummaged for a second and withdrew a small green glass phial, which he uncorked with a soft squeak. Prentice shot out a hand at once and seized his wrist, suspicion flowering in his eyes.

"What's that?" he demanded to know.

"Oh, really now, Captain. I don't intend any mischief, I promise you," said the Doctor, prising the other man's grip loose and extracting his arm. "It's only ammonium carbonate. Or, to put it another way, good old fashioned smelling salts. Just the ticket! Now then..." He leant over the unconscious Argus and gently wafted the bottle under her nose.

Several things happened at once. She blinked, coughed violently and, acting on reflex, knocked the little bottle from the Doctor's hand. He ignored it, and restrained her gently as she clawed at him, trying to struggle up off the floor, and after a second or two her flailing subsided.

"Just relax," he said, soothingly. "Everything's all right now. Welcome back."

"Back?" she croaked.

"Yes," the Doctor told her, with a bright smile. "You gave us all a jolly good scare but, thank goodness, you're still very much alive. And you stopped the Cybermen, too. It was immensely brave of you." He lifted her hand and patted it fondly, and then climbed to his feet and retreated with appropriate tact, fielding Jamie and Victoria instead on a modest pretext.

Argus coughed a little more, until her vision cleared at last and her eyes stopped watering. The memory of the Controller's savage grip was fading now, and though she tentatively explored her throat with fluttering fingertips still half expecting to find it tender and bruised, there was no injury or pain at all. Only then did she turn her head to find Prentice, who was kneeling at her side and looking at her with heartfelt concern.

"Hi," she said.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes." She mustered a little smile. "I think so. Jim, why didn't you tell me before?" she asked him, reaching up to stroke his cheek.

"Because I'm an idiot," he said, hoarsely. "I didn't think you'd be interested in an old man."

"What old man?" she said, then grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him down into a warm and lingering kiss, running her fingers through his hair.

The Doctor cleared his throat. Jamie shifted awkwardly. And Victoria simply smiled gently to herself and then firmly shepherded the two men away to the far side of the bridge, giving the pair some privacy.

"I didn't know you could read people's minds," she said, staring up at the Doctor quizzically.

This new development intrigued Victoria. Most of the time she was easily inclined to forget that the man wasn't human – he _looked_ entirely human, after all – but every so often something would crop up that forcibly reminded her of his extraterrestrial origins. And the realisation that he had slipped into someone else's mind as smoothly as an opportunistic cat both amused and delighted her.

"Well, that's not exactly how it works," the Doctor replied amiably, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels a little; body language that told her in no uncertain terms that he was, yet again, being charmingly abstruse. "It's more a sort of sub-vocal communication combined with an understanding of human psychology."

"Like Mesmerism?" Victoria frowned a little.

"Yes, yes...something like that."

"Aye, well, ye can stay oot o' _my_ mind," said Jamie, with mock severity.

The Doctor chuckled good-naturedly. "You needn't worry, my fine young friend," he said, his eyes twinkling. "I have absolutely no desire to go poking around in your brain."

"Doctor?"

He turned around. Prentice was standing behind him, supporting a weary Argus in the crook of one arm. She still seemed dazed and a little unsteady on her feet, but her face was wreathed in innocent happiness.

"Thank you. For everything," said Prentice, extending a hand. The Doctor shook it warmly.

"Oh, it was nothing, really," he said, reticently. "The Lieutenant is the one you should be thanking. I merely played my part."

"No, Doctor," Argus insisted. "We'd all be dead without you. Is there anything we can do for you? Just name it."

"Well, I _would_ quite like to recover the missing parts of my TARDIS," said the Doctor, after a moment's careful thought. "And there is still the matter of your prisoner, of course..." he added, hesitantly, fixing Prentice with a pointed look.

The captain lifted a hand and shook his head firmly. "Don't worry," he said. "You were right. I've come to my senses, I can assure you. I won't be taking it back to Earth. We'll find some uninhabited planet and leave it there."

"Good man," said the Doctor. "And you're quite sure you don't need any help with that?"

"Thank you, but no. This is something I have to do for myself. I have a lot of atonement to make." Prentice turned and looked at Argus for a moment, and she hugged him tightly in response. "But at least I don't have to do it alone," he went on, with a smile.

Just then, the ship suffered a violent blow, pitching to one side like a frigate on a stormy sea. The impact knocked everyone off their feet, and the bridge was filled with the frightening groan of metal under duress. The Doctor rolled over, scrambled out of the corner and then clambered to his feet, his eyes wild, seeking his companions.

Jamie, meanwhile, was helping Victoria up. She clutched at her head as the ship rocked once more, and then squealed and clung to the Scotsman for dear life until the motion eased a little. Only then did she wince and feel for her hairline, where a small cut was oozing blood.

"Hey, are ye all right?" he asked, seeing this.

"Really, I'm fine," she said, but then screwed up her face once more in pain. Jamie tutted gently at this paltry attempt at stoicism, and gently mopped the blood from her forehead with the cuff of his shirt-sleeve.

"What was that?" Prentice dived for the console and studied the scanner, his brow furrowing. The display was a mass of static and confused, jagged lines, and he thumped it with the edge of his hand, snarling in frustration. He then swung around and stared at the terrified pilot instead. "Well?"

"I...I don't know, sir," Reese stuttered. "It looked like a blast wave to me, and then the sensors were knocked out."

"Get them back on line right _now,_" hissed Prentice, stabbing a finger at the display. "I want to know what that was."

"Yes, sir," said the pilot, reaching for the switches above the scanner and beginning to reboot the external sensors.

"It was a supernova."

Prentice turned at once, focusing an intent glare upon the Doctor. "How do you know?" he asked.

"Oh, once you've been around the galaxy a few times you know about these things," said the Doctor calmly, stepping into the light and examining the controls over the pilot's shoulder. "May I?"

Reese, responding to a voice of authority, moved aside at once and allowed the Doctor to take his seat. The little man frowned in thought, then prodded at the screen, his movements seemingly random. Squares and circles of coloured light appeared and disappeared under his busy fingertips, and then the display faded to black before brightening once more, showing a clear picture of the surrounding starfield.

"See? There, I was right," he said, triumphantly, indicating a brilliant white smear in the upper left corner of the screen. "Just a local supernova. Nothing to worry about. It's..."

The Doctor's voice faltered, wound down and then stopped altogether. He leant in close and peered at the screen, his mouth a pale line of concern. And then his eyes widened as a tiny blip resolved itself at the edge of the expanding cloud and headed in their direction.


	19. Chapter 19

"I knew it was too good to be true."

Argus spoke softly, but her voice nonetheless carried an edge. She leant over the console and stared at the scanner screen for a moment as its subtle glow glanced across her eyes. And then she strode back to the captain's chair and settled herself in it, giving the Doctor an expectant look, which he caught and interpreted accurately enough.

"It's no use," he said, shaking his head sadly.

"We don't know that until we try," she retorted.

"Yes, we do," he told her, rising from his seat and clasping his hands in front of him, his manner funereal. "Even if you weren't too weak to try again – which you _are_ – you were detected, and the Cybermen will have shut down the network by now. There's no way in. I'm sorry."

"Don't give me 'sorry', Doctor," she said, evenly. "We need ideas, not apologies."

"Very well," he replied, casting a brief glance at his companions before continuing, "I suggest our only remaining recourse is to recover my components, repair the TARDIS and abandon ship."

"Sounds like a plan," said Argus. She pushed her hair back and then gave him a long, thoughtful look. "But why do I get the feeling that's not as simple as it sounds?" she asked him, her eyes cooling slightly.

"It isn't simple at all," he told her, holding her gaze. "We could end up anywhere."

"Anywhere but here? Fine by me," she answered, matter-of-factly. Then she seemed to remember herself and turned her face up to Prentice, saying: "But it's the Captain's decision, not mine."

All eyes landed on Prentice at once. He seemed a little taken aback at this sudden scrutiny, but rallied quickly enough.

"If that's the only way out, yes," he said, after a fractional pause. "There are twelve other crew besides us. Will there be enough room on your ship?"

"Oh, I should think so," said the Doctor, a tiny smile playing about his mouth for a moment. "Just about enough if we all squash up."

"In that case, I suggest we start searching the hold immediately. Evasive manoeuvres, Mr Reese," he said to the pilot, who nodded, turned back to the console and fired the engines once more before initiating the warp drive. "That ought to buy us a little more time, at least."

He turned to Argus now. "Stay here," he said. "You still need to get your strength back."

"But I can help – " she began, starting to get up, but he shook his head and gently pressed her back into her seat.

"Those are my orders, Lieutenant. I need my first officer on the bridge."

She looked for one moment as if she were considering further protest, but visibly acceded.

Prentice left the bridge, followed closely by the Doctor and his companions as they headed for the hold.

"What exactly are these components?" he asked, as they reached the companionway that led down to the ship's hold. When no immediate reply was forthcoming, he turned around and subjected the other man to a meaningful look.

"Well," said the Doctor, suddenly looking shifty, "they're very...that is to say...well, they're a little complicated, I'm afraid."

"Complicated," the captain echoed, hiking one eyebrow. "I see. Can you at least give us _some_ idea what we're looking for?"

"Certainly. We need to find six blue, triangular silicon panels about so big," – he held up his hands a few inches apart to indicate the size – "with etched palladium circuits. They'll be quite distinctive."

"Noted," said Prentice, although he gave the Doctor one last speculative look before he unsealed the door.

As he stepped into the musty hold once more, Jamie tried to keep his doubts to himself. The scale of the search – to say nothing of the deadline and the consequences of failure – were delivering a battering to his normally unquenchable optimism. And despite the man's talent for obfuscation and his claims to the contrary, he knew the Doctor by now. Certainly well enough to recognise that he was desperate, and making a last-ditch attempt to stave off further loss of life.

"We should split up," said Prentice, scanning their surroundings, his eyes flickering to and fro. "Mr McCrimmon, you and Miss Waterfield take the rear sections. Doctor, you come with me." And then, without waiting for a response, he stalked off down the first aisle.

Victoria grabbed the Doctor's sleeve as he made to follow the captain.

"What will happen if we can't find the components?" she asked.

"I really don't know, Victoria," he said, his expression slightly pinched. "But I promise I won't let you come to any harm. Now go with Jamie, there's a good girl."

He touched her shoulder, lightly and reassuringly, then was gone.

She followed Jamie down the walkway that ran the length of the hold and through the gap in the bulkhead between the fore and aft compartments.

"This is just hopeless," she said, as they ducked under the arch.

"Mebbe so," replied Jamie, with a one-sided shrug, as he looked first along and then under a nearby shelf. "But that's nae reason tae quit, now is it?"

"I wish I had your confidence."

"Time was ye'd have called me 'pig-headed' instead," he observed, turning briefly and smirking at her.

"Well, sometimes you are," she said, archly.

They moved on into the depths of the hold, their friendly bickering echoing back and forth in that cavernous space.

* * *

Prentice scoured the floor of the forward hold in search of the components, but he was not so engrossed in this task that he neglected to keep an eye on the Doctor from a discreet distance.

Now his mind was at last clear of the mists of obsession which had overlain it for the last few days, he was piecing together a few previously unheeded fragments of information about the new arrivals in general, and the Doctor in particular. It was clear that there was _something_ unspoken between the three of them, quite apart from the matter of the strange ship sequestered in the hold.

It was also clear that the Cybermen knew the Doctor by name and regarded him as a significant threat to their mission. From the moment he'd set foot on board, he had been their primary target. Perhaps he was, in some way, also their objective.

He had some outlandish mental powers, too, Prentice reminded himself. And yet...the little man radiated an almost tangible air of authority out of all proportion to his eccentric appearance. The captain's military training was urging him to remain on his guard; but his instincts were singing a different song.

"Doctor?" He spoke without thinking, and watched the other man straighten up and turn around.

"Yes?" said the Doctor, tilting his head a little, like a bird.

Prentice swallowed heavily, but just as he was preparing to speak again, a sound distracted him. From the rear of the ship, below the deck of the hold, there came a familiar ghostly howl as the turbines whirled into life. In the same moment, he swayed gently on his feet as the ship decelerated smoothly but rapidly, and by the time he'd secured his balance once more, the implications of this had penetrated his brain and turned it to pure ice.

"We're dropping out of warp!" he shouted to the Doctor, raising his voice from necessity as the engines roared, making the deck plates buzz beneath their feet. And then his face shaded to grey as a further ominous realisation struck home.

"Annabel..." he muttered to himself, and sprinted for the door.

* * *

The Doctor had stopped just long enough to fetch Jamie and Victoria from the rear of the hold, and the three of them arrived on the bridge at a dead run, just behind the captain. The Doctor skidded to a graceless halt at once as he took in the dreadful tableau, and then – without a second thought – he stepped in front of his young companions to shield them, raising his hands as he did so.

Reese was slumped face down over the console, a large bruise already blooming on the back of his neck. Argus was standing over him with a tangle of torn wires in one hand, still spitting sparks. In the other she held her laser pistol; and the barrel, which had been trained on the captain's head, now swung around to point unerringly at the Doctor instead.

He ignored it, and locked his gaze with hers. Her eyes were black and dull and gave nothing away.

"Resist further and you will be destroyed," she said.

"Really now. You think I haven't heard _that_ before?" the Doctor replied, with a derisive snort.

"Yes," she said. "We know you, Doctor. As you know us."

He narrowed his eyes. "Oh? And that makes you think we're at an impasse? I wouldn't be so confident of that if I were you. I've defeated your kind three times now." He gestured dismissively, a contemptuous flick of his hand.

Victoria peered warily over his shoulder at the Lieutenant. The woman was as still as a statue, her finger tightly curled around the trigger of the pistol. And yet there was something in her face; a constant, uneasy flicker as barely perceptible emotions rose and fell, struggling to manifest themselves. It was plain to see that there was a fierce mental battle going on, and Victoria could only pray that Argus would emerge victorious.

"You are not a factor in our plans," said the lieutenant, flatly.

"Just what is that supposed to mean?" asked the Doctor, coldly, but there was no response. Then the weapon began to waver and tremble, straying to one side before swinging back again, and a single tear slipped from Argus's eye and ran down her face unheeded. The Doctor saw his opportunity and seized it.

"Annabel," he said, his voice soft and lilting, "do you remember when you were in the hospital? You were surrounded by the dead and the dying. Fresh patients every day. Pain and suffering on every side. Not more than one in twenty survived the de-conversion process, did they?"

He lowered his hands now, slowly and smoothly. "But you did," he went on, still in those same kindly tones. "You fought them once and you can do it again. Emotions aren't a weakness. They're your greatest asset. Remember why you survived. Remember why you're alive. Remember why you're human."

"Human?" she echoed, her mouth twisting unhappily.

"Yes!" said the Doctor, spreading his arms wide and giving her a brilliant smile. "Gloriously, wonderfully, amazingly human!"

Her arm sagged, and the barrel of the gun dropped. The Doctor stepped over and deftly plucked the weapon from her slack fingers, engaged the safety catch and then turned and tossed it to Jamie for safekeeping. The Scostman caught it out of pure reflex and then looked down at the sleek and sophisticated pistol, his brow creasing. Then he shrugged and handed it to Prentice, who shoved it in his belt with a distinct sigh of relief.

"See if Mr Reese is all right," said the Doctor, his voice strong and steady. The captain moved to the pilot's side and lifted his head a little, examining the young man closely and intently for a moment.

"Just knocked out," he said eventually, with a microscopic quiver in his voice. And indeed, Reese's eyelids were already starting to flicker fitfully as he drifted back to some semblance of consciousness.

"Doctor, they're coming!" cried Argus, and her eyes, which had been flat and dead just a moment ago, were suddenly flooded with primal terror. She grabbed his hand and held on tightly, like a drowning woman.

Every light on the bridge went out at once, plunging them into abyssal darkness. The very air seemed to seize up, and then there came a low and loathsome humming that quickly rose in pitch until it became a knife-edged harmonic scream instead. Then it cut out abruptly, and in the wake of that terrible sound the lights came back on.

They were surrounded by Cybermen.


	20. Chapter 20

Prentice reacted first, reaching for his gun, but the Controller gestured to one of its subordinates and the creature obediently seized his wrist, clamping down cruelly and relentlessly until the captain gasped with pain and dropped the weapon.

"No-one is to move," said the Controller, turning its head and subjecting its prisoners to a brief glance, as if they were of very little relevance. "Resistance will result in death."

"What do you want with us?" asked the Doctor, challengingly, stepping away from the others and lifting his chin defiantly. Victoria, alarmed, tugged at his arm to try to restrain him, but he stopped her with a look and then turned back to the Controller. "Well? I demand an answer!"

There was no reply. The thing turned and waved at two of the others.

"Secure the hold and release the captive," it droned, and watched as they left the bridge.

Prentice stopped clutching at his bruised wrist and grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder, pulling him close and lowering his voice to an urgent hiss.

"No more stonewalling," he said. "What do you know about all this?"

"I don't understand," insisted the Doctor, vaguely, still watching the Controller out of the corner of his eye. The captain shook him hard to attract his attention.

"Damn it, Doctor!" he snapped. "They're not just here for their friend. There's something else they want. And I know it's got something to do with you! What's so special about those missing components?"

"Nothing, I tell you. Nothing! They're part of the navigation system, that's all."

"You're not a very good liar," said Prentice, icily, "but whether I get the truth out of you or not, I'm not allowing them to overrun my ship!"

So saying, he spun around and activated the ship's communication system, speaking into the microphone, his words tumbling out on the back of a single breath.

"Captain to security! We are under attack by Cybermen. Shoot on sight!"

One of the invaders lunged for him at once, clamping a hand on the back of his neck and releasing a powerful electrostatic discharge that caused him to bite down on his tongue as every muscle in his body contracted savagely. His heart raced and stuttered, threatening to explode in his chest, but then the creature abruptly stopped its assault and released its grip. He staggered sideways and fell to his knees with his ears ringing and his head spinning.

Argus helped him up and then looked him over, her expression a mixture of concern and anger.

"Are you insane?" she said.

"I'm not letting them take over this ship," he repeated, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth to wipe away the blood. He cleared his throat with difficulty and then turned to look at her. "I don't want them to hurt you, either."

"Oh, please. Enough with the heroics, mister, I can look after myself!" she told him, furiously, swatting his arm. "You might have been killed. Don't do that again, all right?"

He gave her a long-suffering look, and then, very slowly, his expression changed to one of intense speculation as he glanced over at the invaders.

"Is it just me," he said, quietly and carefully, as if still assembling his thoughts as he spoke, "or do they look...different?"

"Does it matter what they look like?" she replied, but privately, she was inclined to agree. There was something subtly amiss about the boarding party. It wasn't overt, and she couldn't identify any particular detail that stood out in her mind, but her mind was nonetheless registering a point on the graph.

Meanwhile, the pilot had finally recovered from his concussion, and this distracted her from any further consideration of the matter. As she watched, he dragged himself up off the console, blinking slowly, and then raised his hands to his head with a long, drawn-out groan of pain.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice clotted with residual confusion, and struggled to his feet as inelegantly as a newborn lamb. "I thought I heard...oh..."

The Controller turned and stared at him. Reese shut his mouth at once and sank back down into his seat, shrinking in terror. Then it raised its head a little, as if straining to hear a distant song, and remained this way for a few seconds before directing its attention at the Doctor instead. He bore up under this sudden scrutiny, gripping his lapels and fixing the creature with a determined glare.

"You will give me the key to your craft," it said.

Victoria, who was standing closest to the Doctor, watched his expression fall apart, first in puzzlement and then in growing horror as he realised the implications of the Controller's demand.

"No," he said, firmly, shaking his head. "You're not taking the TARDIS. Not while I have breath in my body!"

It reached out and took him by the throat. The Doctor gagged for air, rising onto his toes as the Controller pulled him upward, tightening its grip.

"Give me the key," it said, once more. Jamie and Victoria attacked the creature, struggling to break its hold, but it brushed them aside with insolent ease and then raised its arm, lifting the man off his feet.

"_Doctor!_" screamed Victoria, in desperation, her eyes running with frantic tears. And then, not knowing what else to do, she leapt forward and delved into his pocket, tugging out the key and holding it up.

"Take it," she pleaded with the Cyberman. "But please let him go!"

The Controller lowered its arm and released the Doctor at once, then reached out and took the key from her trembling fingers and turned away, immediately disinterested in them. She ignored it, and together she and Jamie bent to examine the Doctor, who was on his knees, hunched over and fighting to catch his breath. She watched him for a few seconds, convinced he was going to collapse; but then at once he seemed to recover in the space of a heartbeat and snapped his head up, his bloodshot eyes filled not with anger but – what was worse – with deep disappointment. In the face of it, she quailed.

"You shouldn't have done that," he told her.

"I...I only wanted to stop it hurting you," she whispered.

"I know, I know." He gave her a weary little smile and patted her hand, and then staggered to his feet with Jamie's assistance and glared at the Controller once more.

"That key won't do you any good, you know," he said, imperiously, drawing himself up despite his residual breathlessness. "You'll never get the door open. It only works for me."

"But Doctor," said Jamie, frowning, "the TARDIS isn't – "

He got no further than this. The Doctor jabbed an elbow into his ribs and then spoke, very softly indeed, out of the corner of his mouth.

"You and I know it's not locked," he muttered, "but the Cybermen don't, or at least they evidently haven't bothered to check yet. I'm hoping this way they'll take us down to the hold with them. Now will you _please_ shut up!"

"Oh..." Jamie looked down at his feet for a moment, his cheek colouring.

Prentice interrupted them at that point. He still looked to be in considerable pain, his face was pale and he was rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Look," he said, "if all they want is your ship, then they can have it and go in peace. Is it worth risking everyone's lives?"

The Doctor turned on the spot and stared him down, and what Prentice saw in those piercing eyes sent him reeling back a step.

"Yes, it is," said the Doctor, in a voice of eerie calm. "If the Cybermen get their hands on the TARDIS, it's all over. Not just for everyone on this ship, but for everyone in the universe. They'll have mastery of the whole of time and space and absolute dominion over everything that ever was, is or will be.

"You wanted the truth, Captain?" he went on, still speaking in that same frightening monotone. "Well, now you have it. My ship is a time machine, and I would sooner die than allow its boundless power to be used for equally boundless evil."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Prentice, but it was an automatic response born of denial, and after a second his face seemed to slacken considerably. "_Really_ a time machine?"

"You think I'd lie at a time like this?"

"I don't know _what_ to think any more."

The Controller loomed over them once more, addressing the Doctor, who eyeballed it stoically in return.

"You will open it for us," it told him.

"I most certainly will not," he snapped, arching his brows.

"Then your companions will die." The Controller raised its arm and reached out for Victoria, who backed away, her eyes huge. Jamie, acting on his strongest instinct, pulled out his knife and stepped between her and the creature, waving the blade in threatening circles.

"Ye'll haftae come through me first, pal," he said, hotly.

"No, Jamie, no," said the Doctor, resignation tainting his voice. He took the Scotsman's arm and drew him back gently but firmly, and then squared up to the Cyberman with a humourless smile.

"Very well," he said. "I'll do as you ask. Give me the key."

* * *

The Controller and its subordinates herded their prisoners down to the hold. As the doors closed behind them, Jamie looked around, automatically scanning his surroundings for any sight or sign of danger. He reached down and took Victoria's hand as they moved further into the open space in front of the stacked crates, and was rewarded with a vicious jab in the back from one of the Cybermen behind them.

"Keep moving," it said, tonelessly.

"A'right, a'right," he said, aggrieved, and then led the girl down the central aisle.

The Doctor walked ahead of them all, his head held high and his gaze front and centre. Jamie watched the man as they went, his brain racing. He fervently hoped the Doctor had a plan in mind, and was preparing himself to lend any assistance required of him.

The party rounded the last aisle, and the Doctor found himself facing the holding cell once more. Two Cybermen were working on the heavy locks with what looked like laser cutters, and even as he watched, the last piece clattered to the deck and the heavy door of the cell swung open ponderously. The imprisoned Cyberman, already free of its restraining shackles, stepped out of the cramped space and straightened up.

It was holding something in its hands as it emerged. The six missing circuits from the TARDIS, neatly slotted together into a hexagonal shape. This meant absolutely nothing to Jamie, but he heard a choking gasp from beside him. And as he turned to seek the Doctor he saw a thunderstruck expression surfacing on the man's face.

"What have you done?" said the Doctor, his voice raw with emotion and his eyes glassy. "Oh no, what have you done?"

"Doctor, what's the matter? What is that thing?" asked Argus, from behind his shoulder.

He didn't look around as he spoke, but continued to stare, unblinking, at the creature.

"I was wrong," he said, flatly, barely moving his lips now. "That is the last Cyberman."

"But these others..." she said, hesitantly.

The Doctor turned to her now, and his expression was a mask of pure white dread.

"They're from the future," he said.


	21. Chapter 21

Everyone stared at the Doctor.

"The Cybermen were driven to extinction," he said to himself, his voice hollow and his eyes wandering away into the distance. "But then, from out of nowhere, they were back. Now we know why, don't we? Now we know. I never saw _this_ coming, though..."

He spun around once more and advanced on the Cyberman, his fury spurring him on and his eyes flashing dangerously; and, incredibly, the creature took a step back in the face of his rage.

"You stripped my TARDIS for parts?" he said, furiously. "How dare you!"

"It was necessary."

"To send a distress call across time?" he said, still bristling with anger.

"Yes."

"But how? _How?_ Even with the artron energy converters and the tremendous power this ship was generating, you couldn't possibly have opened a breach in the time vortex. You'd never manage it without a focal point to determine the...the..." He wound down, his eyes widening, then slapped a hand to his cheek as understanding struck home. "Oh, I've been a complete idiot. You used the Cybermat, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"So this was my fault."

There was no reply, which was probably for the best. The sudden, ringing silence was eventually broken by Prentice, who raised a hand to forestall any further outburst from the Doctor, who looked as if he were on the verge of apoplexy.

"Does it really matter?" said the captain, surprisingly calmly given the circumstances. "Listen, right now I couldn't care less when or where they've come from. We still have to find a way to deal with them, don't we?" He glanced around at the others and lowered his voice a notch. "Well then, let's get on with it," he added.

Their whispered conference was interrupted by the Controller, who approached the Doctor and held out the circuits.

"You will repair your craft," it said.

The Doctor looked startled for a second, but reached out and retrieved the components, dismantled them swiftly and efficiently and then slipped them into his pocket. And then he looked up into the creature's black, soulless eye-sockets, his expression tinted with quiet determination.

"You won't get away with this, you know," he said.

The Controller raised an arm and pointed toward the rear of the hold as its subordinates spread out, surrounding the humans. The Doctor's mouth twitched, but he said no more, and merely beckoned to Prentice before walking away. The Cybermen followed close behind, shoving the rest of their prisoners along.

Only once the captain had reached his side did the Doctor speak again, this time in a silken murmur.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

"There's a loading hatch at the back of the hold," said Prentice. "If I can slip away from them I'll set it to open on a thirty second delay. Do you think you can distract them long enough?"

"Possibly," said the Doctor, looking deeply concerned. "But what about the others?"

"Get them into the TARDIS and bar the doors."

"It's very risky," the Doctor muttered.

"I know it is, and if I had any better ideas, believe me, I'd say so. But no matter what happens to us," the captain went on, earnestly, "we can't let the Cybermen take your ship. It would be the end of everything."

"Yes. You're right," the Doctor admitted, his shoulders sagging.

They came at last to the wide clearing space at the far end of the hold, where the TARDIS stood, its frosted windows casting a soft and subtle glow to all four sides in the relative gloom of its surroundings. The Doctor stopped in his tracks and stared at it, his expression settling at last. And then, to everyone's bewilderment, he reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his recorder.

"I do hope you don't mind," he said, turning to address the Controller with a reticent smile. "Only it is rather traditional to play a hornpipe before boarding."

"You will not – " it began, but the Doctor had already put the instrument to his lips and was playing a lively little tune, the mellifluous notes echoing around the open space.

Humans and Cybermen alike watched this performance in increasing bemusement. Argus felt a tingle in her mind, and she realised after a second or two that the chip was still receiving data from the collective, registering their unaccustomed confusion and transmitting it to her. She was determined not to waste the opportunity, and she homed in on this feeling, amplifying it as best she could and then feeding it back into the network. She didn't know exactly why the Doctor was playing the fool, but while he was, she intended to make the most of it.

Meanwhile, Prentice had been drifting slowly out of the circle. He glanced around, found himself out of the Cybermen's line of sight at last and then ducked behind a stack of boxes, which provided some cover. These shielded him from view as he hurried along the starboard side, close to the hull of the ship, and finally – here he let out a soundless sigh of relief – emerged next to the access panel for the loading hatch doors.

Lifting the cover, he keyed in the override code and then activated the timer, glancing over his shoulder nervously. He could still hear the merry strains of the Doctor's recorder, and assumed that the distraction was still working perfectly. Then, as the door lock flashed to red and started to count down, he sprinted back along the aisle and burst back into the gathering at full speed, seizing the Doctor's arm and motioning to the others to head for the TARDIS.

They needed no further prompting. Jamie grabbed Victoria's hand and pulled her along, and Argus brought up the rear. Reflex had her reaching for her pistol as the Cybermen lumbered in hot pursuit, but as her hand dropped to her holster and found nothing but empty air, she remembered that it had been confiscated; and in that second, the Controller gained on her and raised its hand.

Then Prentice was at her side once more. He drew his weapon and fired without the slightest hesitation, and the laser blast struck the creature in the shoulder, sending it staggering back into the others. Without waiting to see if he'd inflicted a mortal wound, he fired again and again, and the hold was filled with flashing light and the painful crackle and snap of electricity.

"Get to the TARDIS," he shouted above the din. "I'll hold them off!"

"I'm not leaving you!" she yelled back.

"I'll be right behind you. Now go!"

Reluctantly she obeyed, and caught up with the Doctor and his companions at the open doors of the TARDIS. Jamie reached out and hauled her inside, and then turned back as Prentice holstered his pistol once more and raced for the doors himself. He crossed the threshold just a few steps ahead of the Controller, and then he and Jamie turned and heaved at the doors with all their might, shoving them closed and leaning on them as the creature started to beat its fists against the old police box.

"Can ye no' get the doors locked?" Jamie panted, redoubling his strength. The Cyberman was immensely, nightmarishly powerful, and his feet slid across the floor as the doors groaned and then opened an inch or two under that furious assault. Growling with effort, Jamie managed to close the gap once more, but he had precious little fight left in him now, and it could only be a matter of seconds before the creature was upon them.

The Doctor was at the console, and had finally managed to reconnect the door lever despite the fact that his hands were shaking from an overload of nervous energy. He threw it at once, and then waved at Jamie and the captain.

"It's all right," he said, exhaling loudly and painfully, looking fit to collapse as he leaned heavily on the console. "It's locked out now."

The two men edged away from the doors at the Doctor's instigation, although they moved slowly and gingerly, fully prepared to reapply their strength at a moment's notice. The loud thumping continued unabated, but the doors remained closed, and Jamie finally unwound his muscles, at least a little. And then Prentice, remembering himself, checked his watch.

"Five seconds," he said, lifting his gaze once more. But the Doctor was one step ahead of him, and had activated the external scanner, which showed them a view of the hold, the Cybermen milling in confusion as they watched their leader attack the TARDIS.

The bay doors opened, and at once, the hold was filled with a screeching, bellowing, hurricane-force wind as the air rushed headlong into the vacuum of space. Several of the Cybermen were swept out immediately, flailing helplessly as they disappeared into the interstellar void and were quickly lost to sight in the darkness. The Controller desperately grabbed for the TARDIS doors, but a split second too late, as it too was tumbled head over heels by the merciless blast before being sucked out of the ship.

The captain approached the screen, his eyes fixed on it, his gaze as cold as steel. Only one Cyberman remained, grimly hanging onto a stanchion mere metres from the open doors. Without the slightest surprise, he realised that it was his former captive. He watched as it struggled against its fate, and then, moving hand over hand, dragged itself upright and began to make its way toward the TARDIS in the teeth of the vicious gale.

Just then, a blaring klaxon started to sound, and Prentice jerked his head up sharply.

"It's the safety cut-out," he said, flatly. The ship's automatic system was designed to seal all the airlocks in the event of imminent de-pressurisation. Above the open doors, a red warning light began to flash, and he knew that they would close at any moment.

He turned away from the screen and hung his head, drawing a slow and very deep breath. When he finally looked up once more, he saw the Doctor studying him with apparent equanimity. But there was a wealth of understanding in those soft blue eyes...as well as an ocean of sadness.

"Promise me you'll take care of her," said Prentice, straightening his spine.

The Doctor nodded. "I promise," he said.

The captain turned to Argus now and took her head between his hands, kissing her softly and tenderly, and then he drew back a little and gazed into her eyes, which were filled with confusion so profound that it hurt his heart; and yet, he thought to himself, she had never looked more beautiful than she did at that moment.

"I love you," he said, simply and quietly, and then headed for the doors without looking back, just as the Doctor threw the switch.

The air rushed out of the TARDIS, bearing him along with it as the doors slammed shut behind him, and he lost his footing at once as he was swept toward the doors, which were already starting to close. He flung out his hands and grabbed for the Cyberman as he went past, and then wrapped one arm around the creature's neck, hanging on tightly. It choked and squealed and fought like a thing possessed, clawing at his arm, but he reached up and inexorably prised its hands loose from the stanchion, first one and then the other.

"What did I tell you?" he snarled. "We die together!"

Then they were gone.


	22. Chapter 22

Argus sat very quietly, staring straight ahead.

Jamie and Victoria watched from the far side of the control room as the Doctor ran a mysterious device over the back of the Lieutenant's neck. At length, there was a soft _beep_ and a green light flashed on the instrument. The Doctor, apparently satisfied with this, straightened up and stowed the gadget away in the mysterious recesses of his oversized coat, and then moved around into her field of vision, giving her a bright smile. She didn't return the expression.

"There now," he said. "That didn't hurt, I trust?"

"No," she said, getting to her feet and straightening her collar. "You're sure the chip's deactivated now?"

"Oh yes, it's quite dead, just a useless chunk of silicon," he told her. "You shouldn't have any more trouble with it."

"Trouble," she repeated, then loosed a short, humourless laugh and cast a brief glance at the Doctor's companions. "That's your middle name, isn't it, Doctor?" He opened his mouth, but she lifted a hand to silence him for the moment. And now she smiled too, although it was small and weak.

"I apologise," she went on. "You saved my life and many others besides, and I'll be forever in your debt. But the man I loved is dead. If I'm a little bitter for the time being, I hope you understand."

"Of course," said the Doctor, with flawless grace. Then he turned his head a little, a speculative light in his eye. "You know, you could always come with us...?" he said, hanging a question on the end of the sentence like a hook. Argus frowned at him.

"Galloping all over time and space and getting into the most hideous danger?"

"Well, there's a little bit more to it than that," he replied, looking moderately affronted.

"Aye," said Jamie, with the slightest snort. "No' _much_ more, mind."

The Doctor turned and fixed the young Scot with an irritated glare, but as he turned back to the lieutenant, she was already shaking her head firmly.

"Thank you," she added, "but no. If what you said is true, the Cybermen will be back one day."

"Yes, unfortunately, they will."

"Then how can I leave?" she asked him. Then her expression mellowed, and she extended a hand, which the Doctor grasped and shook. "Goodbye, Doctor," she said. "And do look after yourself, won't you?"

"I shall do my very best, I assure you," he said, warmly. Argus nodded, turned on her heel and left the TARDIS without a further word. The Doctor ambled over to the console and closed the doors behind her, and then started checking his earlier repairs, humming softly and tunefully as he studied one particular panel with the aid of a brass magnifying glass he'd fished from the depths of his coat pocket.

"Doctor?" said Victoria, after an interval. He glanced up at her with mild curiosity.

"Yes?"

"Will Lieutenant Argus be all right? I really don't like leaving her so soon."

"You're a good girl," he replied, his eyes creasing kindly as he smiled at her. "But yes, I think she'll recover. Given time, anyway. The human mind is remarkably resilient. Anyway," he went on, rubbing his palms together briskly and cheerfully, "I think we'd better be moving along, don't you?"

Victoria leant her head on Jamie's shoulder for a moment as she watched the Doctor flip switches and levers, muttering to himself as he always did, preparing for take-off. The central column of the console started its familiar rise and fall once more, and she stared at it blindly, wondering where on earth the ramshackle old time machine would land them next.

Groaning and wheezing, the TARDIS faded away.


End file.
